For over 10 years, the IUF and its affiliates have been campaigning to focus attention on hotel housekeepers with the goal of shining a spotlight on work all too often forgotten by guests. While hotel housekeepers continue the fight to defend their working conditions, the effects of the pandemic are still being felt:
- Inadequate health and safety protections and increasing workloads are just part of the hotel industry’s attempt to define a post-pandemic new normal
- Workers’ demand for improved health and safety conditions negotiated with unions is our priority as a safe workplace is fundamental to the safe recovery of the sector
- The Global Week of Action for Hotel Housekeepers (November 24 – December 4) will highlight all these issues and make hotel housekeepers and their work visible in the public sphere
Shelley, a UK hotel housekeeper and IUF affiliate Unite the Union leader, stated, “The issues being highlighted by IUF Global Week of Action for Hotel Housekeepers are the issues we face every day. Our health, safety and welfare are put at risk by the productivity time limits set to clean each room while also maintaining corporate cleanliness standards. This means we can’t work safely in the manner we supposedly should because the pressure is relentless. Housekeeping staff feel constantly stressed and exhausted and unable to achieve a decent work-life balance. This leads to high staff turn over which further exacerbates the issues. We need to act collectively to challenge these unfair practices.”
