Hotel Worker Correspondent
My experience working as a housekeeper at Best Western in Memphis, TN is very tiring and stressful. Management demands that we work more than eight hours, without paying us overtime or valuing our effort. The hotel is short-staffed, and the few of us working here have to do all the work.
My coworkers and I have worked about 20 years at this hotel and we are still earning $15 an hour and working 11 hours every day. We are frequently asked to come in on our off days. Now, the owners’ new idea is for us to sleep at the hotel so we can start working at 3am, violating our right to go home after the work day to rest and see our families.
They don’t give us bonuses or motivate us. When they tell us they’re going to give us a raise, it’s only $0.25. The last time I got a raise was two years ago.
As housekeepers, we’ve experienced many incidents.
Three years ago, a man died inside his room and it took management 15 days to do something about it, despite our complaints. He had been living in the hotel for many years. One day we stopped seeing him around the building and it started to smell horribly on his floor. We reported it immediately but management and reception staff didn’t listen, and instead waited two weeks until the smell was unbearable. When they checked inside his room, they found his body decomposing.
One day, my boss called me into the office after the receptionist told her that I wanted to take a tip that a guest had left. She told me that I could get suspended for it, and threatened to get me in trouble with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] when I fix my papers. I told my coworkers, and they told me that if management did suspend me they would walk out with me. I told the owner that I was not guilty but to let me know if she planned to follow through with her threats. In the end, she told me that she believed me and nothing happened.
The laundry rooms lack adequate ventilation. Sometimes the heat gets above 100 degrees, and when the dryer is on it feels like 110 degrees.
The owners don’t want to spend money on essential items. On top of so much pressure, we don’t have enough cleaning supplies or bedspreads. We have to waste time waiting for the bedding to come out of the laundry, which makes us take longer to turn in the rooms, and longer to leave work.
At one time there were about 12 of us workers, and today there are only about five of us. All of them have left for the same problems: for not paying well, and for wanting us to work more.
After so many years of unappreciated work, my health has deteriorated. The doctors say I have arthritis in my arms, and I have developed anxiety from the pressure of the work.
We are looking for worker correspondents: cashiers, drivers, nurses, construction workers, cleaners, warehouse staff—anyone who wants to report on what’s really happening at work. Share a story, a tip, a victory, or a fightback. We’ll help you turn it into an article. Contact us at theworkerpaper@proton.me.
Image: A Best Western hotel in Blairsville, Georgia. Credit: Harrison Keely, retrieved from Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).
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