Action Alert: Going Somewhere?

Room service. The mint on your pillow. Those plush, cozy robes.

We all love the little touches. But it’s harder to enjoy your hotel stay when you find out what’s going on beyond the bottles of sweet-smelling shampoo.

·       Your housekeeper probably takes pain medication to get through the day. The rate of injuries for hotel housekeepers is more than double the injury rate for service sector workers as a whole. Two-thirds of housekeepers report taking pain medication to get through their work day.

·       Your housekeeper may not be getting paid for all of her work. Hotel housekeepers must rush to meet a daily quota of cleaned rooms. As a result, they frequently skip rest periods and meals in order to finish, and even work off the clock to meet their quotas.

·       Your housekeeper is probably an immigrant woman or a woman of color who is struggling to support her family on her earnings. More than 90% of hotel housekeepers are women, and these jobs tend to pay less and to be more likely to create injury than hotel jobs more often filled by men.

·       Your housekeepers’ hard work still probably doesn’t make ends meet. Hotel housekeepers frequently earn as little as $8.50/hour and rarely receive health insurance.

Are you making travel plans this fall for Thanksgiving or a winter vacation? If so, don’t just stay in hotels—stay justly.

The rabbis taught that hachnasat orchim—welcoming guests is “even greater than welcoming the divine presence.” (Midrash Tehillim 18).

Do we treat those who make us feel comfortable away from home in a way that recognizes the importance of this work?

Click here to sign the Hotel Guest Pledge, and to learn how your hotel stay can improve working conditions for the housekeepers who service your room.

The Jewish Funds for Justice, Progressive Jewish Alliance, Jewish Labor Committee, and other Jewish organizations have spent the past two years working with UNITE HERE, the union that represents hotel workers, to improve the lives of hotel housekeepers. To date, this campaign has helped more than 60,000 housekeepers to achieve better wages and working conditions. Still, tens of thousands more housekeepers continue to work for little pay and under dangerous conditions.

Click here to sign the Hotel Guest Pledge, and to learn more about how you can support housekeepers in their effort to secure fair wages and safe working conditions.

After you take the pledge, you will have an opportunity to purchase a luggage tag, which will help you to remember your pledge, while also helping you to keep an eye on your luggage.

Thank you,

Jewish Funds for Justice

Progressive Jewish Alliance

Jewish Labor Committee