Here's a mixed blessing for you: Marriott International will be
encouraging guests in its hotels to tip the housekeepers by leaving envelopes for that purpose in rooms. Which ... on the one hand, anything that improves low levels of tipping for this group of overwhelmingly female, mostly low-paid workers is good. But on the other hand, you couldn't ask for a more picture-perfect statement that a company is not paying its workers enough, and knows it is not paying its workers enough.
In 2012, maids and housekeepers earned a median salary of $19,780, or approximately $9.51 per hour, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Housekeepers at Marriott’s high-profile hotels in downtown Washington tend to make more than that, according to John Boardman, executive secretary-treasurer of Unite Here Local 25, which represents workers at more than 30 area hotels.
Under the union’s current contract, which runs through September 2017, housekeepers, who currently make $18.30 per hour, receive raises every six months, Boardman said.
But with low levels of unionization in the hotel industry, especially outside of major cities, far more housekeepers are earning poverty wages, as that $9.51 median shows. This is
a physically taxing job, as well:
Hotel workers have a 40 percent higher injury rate than other service sector workers, and housekeepers have a 50 percent higher rate than other hotel workers. In surveys, about 80 percent had work-related pain. The job is very physical, requiring workers to lift, bend, and twist with heavy loads and clean in awkward positions.
If Marriott's housekeepers get more tips because of the company's envelope initiative, their lives are better and that's a good thing. But this is a profitable company engaging in significant
share buybacks. It can afford to pay its non-union housekeepers more.