As the union attempts to apply pressure on the industry, it recently released a report titled “The Human Cost of High Hotel Profits” that includes survey results from more than 1,800 guest room attendants between April and August of this year.
“When these women talk about the majority of them using pain relievers to get through their work day since the pandemic, that stuff is just stunning,” Pappageorge said.
The report notes that room rates “have increased 29% from 2019 to 2023” and that resorts including MGM Resorts and Wynn have “seen their operating profits in Las Vegas reach record levels.”
Guest room attendants were surveyed on working conditions. According to the report:
- 95% of guest room attendants indicated that they traveled to a guest room outside their normal work area only to find the room didn’t require services;
- 77% of attendants reported they had to decline in-person requests to clean a room because they hadn’t been assigned the room by management;
- 79% reported their employer did not provide a credit-reduction in their daily room quota when management had them waste time traveling to rooms outside of their service area that didn’t need service.
“Housekeeping is a very difficult job and only doing checkouts makes it even harder,” Maria Luisa Martinez, a guest room attendant, said in the survey. “Some ladies cry at the end of their shifts because of how much pain they are in.”