today\u2019s Tribune<\/a>, Starwood Hotels has piloted a new program that allows its guest to decline, not just fresh towels daily, but the entire housekeeping service, for up to three days in a row, in reward for a credit towards food or drinks, or extra frequent-customer points. \u00a0(It\u2019s promoted as a \u201cgreen\u201d initiative, because of the water and electricity savings \u2014 from not mopping floors and not using a vacuum, I guess \u2014 but, of course, it\u2019s primarily a cost-savings initiative.) \u00a0And the housekeeping employees aren\u2019t happy. <\/p>\nReasonably enough, they claim that the rooms then become dirtier when they are cleaned, and require more work to clean, while the company hasn\u2019t adjusted its daily quotas, so that \u201cthey were experiencing more pain and discomfort in their legs and backs because they were more physically taxed cleaning dirtier rooms.\u201d \u00a0Also, \u201chousekeepers have been reprimanded for not cleaning rooms fast enough and some have resorted to working through breaks to avoid warnings.\u201d \u00a0And, to be sure, I don\u2019t know the mechanics of this sort of thing: if workers are paid on an hourly basis, but likewise have a quota, does the employer have the right to require them to stay late (and if so, paid or unpaid) to finish? \u00a0If the employee finishes early, do they get their full day\u2019s pay? \u00a0One doubts they have a bonus system, since this is, after all, a staff of unionized housekeepers. \u00a0Or is this all about reprimands which add up to termination \u2014 and, if so, one presumes that the hotel would find it impractical and inefficient to set up a system in which each employee, in turn, is reprimanded and fired, and new employees hired and trained.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s all a matter of how they run their business and manage their employees.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more interesting is the other thing the housekeepers and their union are protesting: \u00a0the number of hotel guests electing to forgo room-cleaning service has been so significant that employees have been terminated, their services unneeded. \u00a0Hence:<\/p>\n
More than two dozen women and Unite Here organizers carrying small mops and colorful dusters quietly marched Friday into the lobbies of the Sheraton, W and Westin hotels to deliver a letter calling for the program to eliminated \u2014 or at least changed to one that doesn\u2019t result in job losses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It is the nature of businesses to look for ways to cut labor costs. \u00a0And those same businesses have no moral or legal obligation to employ a fixed number of workers if they can find a way to be profitable with lower expenses. \u00a0 Conceivably, the union and the hotel could agree to cut all employees\u2019 hours evenly, but it seems to me that, historically, unions have been skeptical of such ideas, too.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
According to today\u2019s Tribune, Starwood Hotels has piloted a new program that allows its guest to decline, not just fresh towels daily, but the entire housekeeping service, for up to three days in a row, in reward for a credit towards food or drinks, or extra frequent-customer points. \u00a0(It\u2019s promoted as a \u201cgreen\u201d initiative, because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[48],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-minimum-wage"],"yoast_head":"\n
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