Hundreds of Housekeepers Rally in Solidarity with Boston 100 Hyatt Workers, Raise Awareness of Workplace Injuries
March and Rally Mark Launch of “Hope for Housekeepers” National Tour
Nearly 350 hotel housekeepers joined clergy and community leaders at a march and rally in Downtown Long Beach today to raise public awareness of the high risk of injuries for room attendants in Long Beach’s booming hospitality industry. The events marked the launch of the “Hope for Housekeepers” campaign, a new effort founded by Hyatt housekeepers to stop the abuse of women in the hotel industry and bring a message of hope to fellow Hyatt housekeepers and the thousands of women working as housekeepers across the globe.
“I am proud to be with the hotel housekeepers today as we stand up for respect for women and women’s work. Housekeepers deserve better,” said Maria Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the L.A. County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO. “At a typical hotel, housekeepers clean an average of 14-16 rooms a day; many of them work with chronic pain and must take medication to get through the day. But at the Hyatt Long Beach, and at Hyatt hotels across the nation, housekeepers are asked to clean up to 30 rooms a shift!”
In a recent academic study of 50 hotels operated by the top five hotel companies, Hyatt had the highest reported rate of injury for housekeepers in the hotels studied. Hyatt housekeepers often clean up to 30 hotel rooms a day in just eight hours, and many forgo health insurance for their families because of the high cost. Hyatt is also slashing jobs, discarding women like the Boston Hyatt 100 Housekeepers, who were fired after training their replacements from an outsourcing agency.
“Sometimes, I have to clean up to 30 rooms in one shift,” said Celia Alvarez, who has worked as a housekeeper for the Hyatt Long Beach for 19 years. “I have to rush through our work just to finish that many rooms in 8 hours—lifting, tucking, pulling, over and over again. Because of this intense motion, I am permanently injured in my lower back and shoulder and can no longer work.
In Boston on August 31, Hyatt Hotels fired 100 long-term housekeepers and replaced them with low wage workers from a subcontractor. The fired housekeepers claim they were told they were training the subcontracted workers as “vacation” replacements. Hyatt workers and housekeepers across the nation held actions and vigils in support of the Boston Hyatt 100 Housekeepers. Nearly 200 hospitality workers and community supporters were arrested last week as part of a non-violent civil disobedience action in downtown Chicago. The action, witnessed by over 600 workers and community supporters, took place in front of the Park Hyatt Hotel amid an escalating local labor dispute and a growing public backlash against Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels for the recent firing of 100 Hyatt housekeepers in Boston. Hotel workers in San Francisco also staged a major civil disobedience action in conjunction.
Hyatt housekeepers are organizing a seven-city tour, starting with Long Beach, featuring the symbol of their movement — the Hope Quilt. This quilt stitches together the stories of Hyatt housekeepers and the pain they endure everyday just to provide for their families. Each patch symbolizes a story of pain, injury, and even death or miscarriage brought upon by the heavy burden of their workloads.
“When our hotel guests see their rooms nice and clean, they have no idea that the housekeeper who did the work was probably injured,” said Alvarez. “Guests should know that we’re suffering.”
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