All over the world gender inequality is hard at work and women are being shortchanged.
Fifty-year-old hotel housekeeper Cristina, from the Dominican Republic, cleans 16 rooms a day and tidies 90 more. It's still not enough for a living wage: she works a second job to make ends meet. Another young housekeeper, from Toronto, now wears a wrist brace permanently because of an injury her employer refused to make accommodation for. A housekeeper from the Dominican Republic, was even hospitalized because of long term exposure to toxic cleaning products.
Stories like these come in from women all over the world. Given back-breaking work and an overwhelming workload they're expected to complete it at breakneck speed without extra pay if they work longer hours to finish the job. Threatened with dismissal if they speak out about harassment or abuse housekeepers feel invisible unvalued and unheard. Injury rates in the hotel industry? They're higher than the meat-packing industry. But housekeepers are told to suffer in silence and get the job done no matter what.
"Slave time is back again," — Esperanza Rojas, Housekeeper in Toronto, Canada
Canadians are complicit. Every dream resort vacation, every weekend hotel getaway, every business trip and every low-cost last-minute deal we embark on is made possible because of the long hours low-pay and backbreaking work of housekeepers around the world.
It doesn't need to be this way. Speak up for fair-paying jobs. Speak out for work that is equally valued. Sign your name and become part of a movement that is standing up against injustice not only for housekeepers, but for all women.
