A program that encourages hotel guests to decline housekeeping to conserve water and electricity sounds like a noble idea.
But hotel housekeepers say the program is killing their jobs, their legs and their backs as those workers still employed say they have to work harder because the rooms tend to be dirtier.
Fabiola Rivera, 31, said her managers expect her to clean rooms left unkempt for as many as three days at a pace of 16 rooms per day in an eight-hour shift, the same quota as if the rooms were tidied daily. And she also has to run around delivering fresh towels to guests in the program who cheat a bit.
“We are totally exhausted,” Lucila Chavez, 40, told a manager Friday at the Westin on North Dearborn Street, where she participated in a small protest of the program. The conservation effort is being promoted by Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, parent to W Hotels, Sheraton and Westin.
Chavez said housekeepers have been reprimanded for not cleaning rooms fast enough and some have resorted to working through breaks to avoid warnings. Still, she said, there are days when she looks at the clock at 2 p.m. and realizes she won’t finish on time. By comparison, before the program started, she could clean up to 20 rooms in a day because some rooms just needed a light touch.
Chavez, who said she’s worked for 12 years at the W Chicago Lakeshore, said she lies awake at night with leg pain.
“I love my job, but this is too much,” she said. “What do (managers) want? Quality or quantity? You can’t do both.”
The hotel chain, in an email, said it stands by its program. “The company will continue to integrate innovative environmental practices into its core business strategy,” it said.
The program, which allows guests to decline housekeeping for up to three days, is part of Starwood’s efforts to reduce energy by 30 percent and water consumption by 20 percent by 2020. As an incentive, guests receive a $5 food and beverage voucher or 250 to 500 reward points each night they decline housekeeping.
More than 5 million guests have voluntarily participated, “saving more than 223 million gallons of water and 961,000 kilowatts of electricity from 2009 to 2013,” the company said.
Eric Ricaurte, founder and CEO of Greenview, a sustainability consulting firm, said hotel environmental programs have been around more than 15 years. Most hotels now offer guests the option of reusing linens and towels, one of the first efforts to conserve energy and water. But even when guests hang up their towels, the sign they don’t want them replaced, housekeepers usually change them, Ricaurte said.
Such programs have misfired with guests, who realized they were helping the hotel cut costs but not getting anything in return, Ricaurte said. In contrast, Starwood’s program offers vouchers and points, he said.
Housekeeper Maria Vergara, 37, said the program has become so popular that there are days when an entire floor’s doorknobs display cards indicating guests don’t want their rooms cleaned.
With not enough desks to dust, sheets to change and bathrooms to scrub, Vergara said she and at least five other housekeepers were laid off Dec. 1. Managers said the layoffs were seasonal, according to the housekeepers.
Noah Dobin-Bernstein, an organizer with Unite Here Local 1, which represents 3,000 housekeepers in Chicago, said hotels nationally have begun to copy Starwood’s program, putting at risk thousands of jobs nationwide. “It’s a big problem,” Dobin-Bernstein said.
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 — or at least changed to one that doesn’t result in job losses.
“We are here because Starwood’s ‘Green Choice’ program has caused a crisis for us and our families,” the letter said.
The letter also outlined results of a survey taken by housekeepers at the W Lakeshore and Westin River North that indicated they were experiencing more pain and discomfort in their legs and backs because they were more physically taxed cleaning dirtier rooms.
“With the green program everything fell apart, especially our bodies,” said Rosa Cruz, who’s worked at the Sheraton for 17 years.
A Sheraton manager said he would share the letter with general managers at hotels in the chain. “I’m sure we will have discussions in the future about it,” he told the women.
In downtown Chicago, Starwood housekeepers are paid about $17 per hour. Unite Here Local 1 members pay dues of $35 to $51 per month, according to a filing with the Department of Labor.
Vergara said that her bills have started to pile up and that she worries she won’t be able to cobble enough money to pay her $1,000 rent in January. The mother of four got her job at the Westin about a year ago. She was excited, she said, because the job promised 40 hour per weeks and benefits. Her previous housekeeping job was part time with no benefits. But because she was among the last to be hired, she was among the first to be cut.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said.
She’s hopeful that if managers end the program, she’ll get her job back.
“It’s that green program,” she said.
Twitter @WriterAlejandra
