If they tell us about hospitality and employment, it already sounds like precarious work and low salaries, since for many years it is one of the less paid sectors and with worse working conditions in Spain. Although everyone thinks of waiters and chefs, there is also a job within the most hidden hospitality, which can ‘overcome’ even in precariousness to the classic work in restaurants: that of a floor waitress or hotels.
Vania Arana, spokesman and president of the union Las Kellys Catalonia, spoke without tap in a recent interview in La Sexta about the working conditions suffered by the waiters of floor, impressing all the spectators present.
You may be interested
The upload of salaries negotiated in the Eurozone takes strength in the second quarter
Manuel (38), Cleaning of cars, about what he earns working: “In one day I got to invoice 1,600 euros, but it is hard work with back pain and be crouched all day”
This woman, who comes from Trujillo (Peru), arrived in Madrid in 1992 with a high school teacher who in Spain never recognized him. This was what pushed her to carry the path that she is currently following, accepting the work she currently performs and being the visible face of one of the most ignored (and urgent) work battles of the tourism sector such as hotel cleaners, since they have salaries and working conditions even worse than house cleaners.
“A beer can cost more than I charge for cleaning a room.”
Cleaners charge between 1 and 1.50 euros per room
Arana talks about the figures charged by these workers without fear of reprisals and alarming for how poor they are in most cases: between 1 and 1.50 euros for each room set up, in a working days that can reach up to 29 daily rooms and salaries that barely reach 820 euros per month in total.
These figures do not, but to clear, that the labor market for floor waitresses invisible, punishes and breaks women who give everything to sustain the brightness of Spanish tourism, while their rights go out.
A dream: dignify the work of cleaners
Before being “the boss of the Kellys,” Vania took care of the elderly. But his first day ended with the death of the old man in his charge. It was then that he went to clean houses until a job opportunity arose in Andorra. The use in a hotel was where its journey began in the world of floor waitresses.
He was working in hotels in Catalonia through ETTS (temporary work companies) since 1996, taking experience, training and, also, important labor disappointments. “I trained in hospitality, I did courses, I even started philology at UNED … I wanted to be a teacher,” he recalls. That dream did not prosper, but another took strength: to dignify the work of those who, like her, clean up.
Vania’s union consciousness began to forge during a complicated pregnancy. “The ETT left me lying. They made me sign a voluntary decline,” he recalls. That episode marked the beginning of a long succession of abuses: workplace harassment, depression and abandonment by the institutions. However, he also aroused a collective force in it. Together with other companions, Vania began to organize.
In 2014 is when its turning point arrived, just when a recognized hotel chain in Barcelona fired several floor waitresses and overloaded work to which they remained. “We cleaned 30 rooms, without breaks, without eating, without drinking. They chased us. They wanted us to renounce for exhaustion.” They did not get it, in addition to not giving up, they went to file a lawsuit.
The first great victory
The complaint against the hotel not only resulted in an extrajudicial agreement: it was a before and after. The farewell workers were readmitted and the internalization of the entire workforce was achieved, even those who did not participate in the demand. “It was a moment of euphoria. We show that you can,” says Vania proudly.
From then on, the Kellys consolidated themselves as an unstoppable collective. Surveyed in social networks in 2014, they were constituted as an association in 2016 and, two years later, in union. Today they have a presence in eight territories and have become an international reference within the feminist and labor struggle.
Beyond claiming better salaries, its main objective is to combat outsourcing, a legal practice that allows hotels to hire cleaning personnel through external companies, reducing costs … and rights. “The law says that the main activity cannot be subcontract. Cleaning rooms is. But nobody does anything,” says Arana.
The consequences of this model are serious: muscle injuries, anxiety, chronic medication and depression consumption. According to workers’ commissions, 95.9% of floor waitresses have anxiety symptoms and four out of ten show depressive indications. “We are a sick collective. We are going to work with girdles, anklers, pain pills,” laments Vania.
Kelly law, a unfulfilled promise
The Government of Spain committed to the collective. “He told us that he was with us. We say: comply. I will take out the blessed Kelly law,” says Arana. This regulation, promoted for years, seeks to eliminate outsourcing, recognize occupational diseases and guarantee early retirement for the sector.
But the law remains blocked in Parliament. Meanwhile, the Kellys accumulate injuries … and frustration.
In 2018, the Parliament of Catalonia approved the Kelly quality seal, designed to distinguish hotels that respect the rights of their workers. It was a symbolic achievement … that never applied. “They told us that they would not develop it. The employer pressed and stopped everything,” Vania denounces.
Tired of institutional inaction, the Kellys decided to take another step and are creating their own reservations. A search engine that will only include hotels that respect labor rights. “Many people ask us where to stay without trampling rights. We want to give that answer,” they explain.