Monday, 6 April 2015

Do you know how much power we have?

I start coming in early so I can share tea with the other maids in the canteen before starting.

I come in around 7.30am and fumble a few cold claggy mini Danish pastries on to my plate, and grab a machine tea.

Looking around the canteen I decide to take a seat with a woman in her late 40s. She's heavily made up, with short plum coloured, slightly punky hair and dark, eye-liner defined eyes.

“Hi, d'you mind if I sit here?” I say brightly.

“Not at all”, she says smiling.

We sip our teas.

It turns out she's Polish. Her name is Dorota and she's worked in housekeeping for a number of hotels in London. In this one she's worked four years on an agency contract.

“Compared to other hotels, this one is good”, she says easily.

I swallow the tea hard.

“I used to have to clean 18 rooms a day. This one is not so bad”.

“It's still a lot though, the 16 a day, and the pay is terrible don't you think? When did you last get a pay rise?”

She laughs. “Never. Yeah, the pay could be better. We work hard”.

“You know how much room attendants get in New York City?” I ask.

“No?”

“£16 per hour, not dollars, £16 pounds, per hour. In exactly the same hotels”.

Dorota shakes her head and smiles down into her tea. “You don't say”

“It's because they're organised. They're unionised”.

“Yeah. We could do with a union here. But....”, she trails off.

“But what?”

“But people all have to get in to it, you can't just have a few here and there, people all need to join, and I don't see that happening”. She grimaces and looks from side to side to see if a supervisor is about.

“Do you know how much power we have?” I say, staring at her. “Without us this place can't function. Without us, people can't check in, beds don't get made, business men can't come and iron their shirts. We make this place”.

The housekeeping department of a hotel is the single largest department, the worst paid, the most invisible, yet the most powerful.

In this one some 300 rooms get cleaned, deep cleaned, Departure Room cleaned, pull-up cleaned, in whichever way - cleaned, by us every day. The hotels' big capital in the big capital are these rooms, these rent-a-night real estate money machines that we are the cogs for.

A hotel is the sum of its working parts. It is an organism and an experience made up of: The office with managers, the customer service team and accountants; Front of House with receptionists, porters and doormen; the restaurant, bar and kitchen with chefs, porters and waiting and banqueting staff; Maintenance with engineers and electricians repairing and oiling the machine; and then there's us in Housekeeping, with our linen and our hoovers and towels and dusters and replacement coffee sachets and shower gels. You don't see us, and we barely see you, but if we all go out on strike, you'll feel us.

Unlike in a factory, where a few hours out or a whole day on strike can see production made up again, in a luxury hotel you can't make up the lost production. You can't make up for the unmade beds and un-emptied trash cans; the room you cannot check in to. You can't make up for the unhappy experience. The hotel's reputation will take a massive hit. 


                                     A strike in a hotel is every hotel chain's nightmare.

There have been walkouts before. In one, agency room attendants hadn't been paid for a month's work. They had called and asked and demanded their pay, for their side of the deal to be kept up but were fobbed off.

So, some 30 cleaners all walked into the canteen at the start of the day and refused to come out until they were paid. Managers were apparently crying. Supervisors were running around all over the place trying to arrange cover and clean rooms themselves. Double pay was promised to those who'd break ranks and go back to work. The women stood firm and were paid the same day.

Dorota smiles. “One time here, three girls were supposed to work on Christmas day. They had stayed the night before, but decided on the day that they weren't going to work. I don't know why, maybe they drank too much but, they left, and with just with these three gone, we had Chaos on all the floors. Chaos.”

I nod slowly.

“I think we need a union here”, I say.

Dorota looks up from her tea and straight at me......

50 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pB0imvTpE2Y

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  3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n13_EeBx69g

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  4. "A strike in a hotel is every hotel chain's nightmare." Looks no different to uni tbh!

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    1. https://youtu.be/7O8rUD_niqM?si=uya00UJRamIUKceW

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    2. https://www.wsj.com/articles/harpercollins-union-goes-on-indefinite-strike-over-pay-and-benefits-11668096539

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  5. https://youtube.com/shorts/DcH9cV9vV4E?si=78dtJij17P0mpN5T

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  6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBQXBbfg_cU

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  7. https://youtube.com/shorts/qhOZweVAlTk?si=lRAn5f0_8yFDaDVZ
    Now that is power!

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  9. https://www.menshealth.com/uk/fitness/a65524662/thor-deadlift-world-record-eddie-hall-reaction/

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  10. https://irp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/cb9165b2/files/uploaded/The+48+Laws+Of+Power.pdf

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    1. https://youtu.be/eEDmZlVCCzc?si=KvnOI-5qrSJa_ZhD

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    2. A little stagey, but you get the point!

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    3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyuRRWC5GY8
      A bit colder than the ice bath in Centre Parcs!

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    4. Jeffrey Sachs argues that empirical evidence suggests welfare states, with high rates of taxation and social outlays, outperform the comparatively free-market economies.[58] William Easterly wrote a rebuttal criticizing Sachs for misrepresenting Hayek's work and for criticizing the book on issues it did not actually address, such as welfare programs for the elderly or sick, something Hayek did not oppose. Easterly noted that The Road to Serfdom was about the dangers of centralized planning and nationalization of industry, including the media.[59] In Sachs' counter-rebuttal, he argued that he was addressing Hayek's foreword in the 1976 adaptation which stated that efforts to bring about large-scale welfare states would bring about serfdom, although much more slowly than under centralized planning. Sachs cited the Nordic states, which remained economically free and relatively capitalist despite a large welfare state, as evidence that Hayek was wrong about such programs leading to serfdom.[60]

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    5. He joined the Dresdner Bank in 1903. In 1905, while on a business trip to the United States with board members of the Dresdner Bank, Schacht met the famous American banker J. P. Morgan, as well as U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt. He became deputy director of the Dresdner Bank from 1908 to 1915. He was then a board member of the German National Bank [de] for the next seven years, until 1922, and after its merger with the Darmstädter und Nationalbank (Danatbank), a board member of the Danatbank.

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    6. In 1989, Sachs advised Poland's anticommunist Solidarity movement and the government of Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki. He wrote a comprehensive plan for the transition from central planning to a market economy which became incorporated into Poland's reform program led by Finance Minister Leszek Balcerowicz. Sachs was the main architect of Poland's debt reduction operation. Sachs and IMF economist David Lipton advised on the rapid conversion of all property and assets from public to private ownership. Closure of many uncompetitive factories ensued.[32] In Poland, Sachs was firmly on the side of rapid transition to capitalism. At first, he proposed American-style corporate structures, with professional managers answering to many shareholders and a large economic role for stock markets. That did not bode well with the Polish authorities, but he then proposed that large blocks of the shares of privatized companies be placed in the hands of private banks.[33] As a result, there were some economic shortages and inflation, but prices in Poland eventually stabilized.[34][35] The government of Poland awarded Sachs one of its highest honors in 1999, the Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit.[18] He also received an honorary doctorate from the Kraków University of Economics.[21] Based on Poland's success, his advice was sought first by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and by his successor, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, on the transition of the USSR/Russia to a market economy.[35]

      Sachs's methods for stabilizing economies became known as shock therapy and were similar to successful approaches used in Germany after the two world wars.[19] He faced criticism for his role after the Russian economy faced significant struggles after adopting the market-based shock therapy in the early 1990s.[36][37][38]

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    7. Sachs's policies for the global eradication of extreme poverty have been the subject of controversy.[70] Nina Munk, author of the 2013 book The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty, says that "sometimes good intentions have left people even worse off than before".[71][72] Stephan Richter, editor-in-chief at The Globalist, and James D. Bindenagel, a former U.S. ambassador, wrote that "In his books and articles, Jeff Sachs has done much to frame and popularize the language and thinking to push a sustainable development agenda on the world stage. That is an achievement in which he can rightfully take considerable pride".[73]

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    8. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    9. "He joined the Dresdner Bank in 1903. In 1905, while on a business trip to the United States with board members of the Dresdner Bank, Schacht met the famous American banker J. P. Morgan, as well as U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt. He became deputy director of the Dresdner Bank from 1908 to 1915."

      In 1950, Juan Yarur Lolas, the Bethlehem-born founder of the Banco de Crédito e Inversiones and president of the Arab colony in Santiago, Chile, tried to hire Schacht as a "financial adviser" in conjunction with the German-Chilean community.[41] However, the plan fell through when it became news.[41] He served as a hired consultant for Aristotle Onassis, a Greek businessman, during the 1950s.[42] He also advised the Indonesian government in 1951 following the invitation of economic minister Sumitro Djojohadikusumo.[43]

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    1. “What about you, Commander? Why do *you* seek higher rank?’
      It was a question many had asked over the years. Thrawn had asked it of himself. The answer never seemed to satisfy the questioner.
      ‘Because there are problems that must be solved. Some cannot be solved by anyone except me.”
      ― Timothy Zahn, Thrawn

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    4. https://youtu.be/FI-L7CnWwCE?si=fjEn6cqQ2YkDIWMm

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    5. George Orwell responded with both praise and criticism, stating, "in the negative part of Professor Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often – at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough – that collectivism is not inherently democratic, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamt of." Yet he also warned, "[A] return to 'free' competition means for the great mass of people a tyranny probably worse, because more irresponsible, than that of the state."[51][52]

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    6. There are things in the universe that are simply and purely evil. A warrior does not seek to understand them, or to compromise with them. He seeks only to obliterate them.

      Timothy Zahn, Thrawn (Star Wars: Thrawn, #1)

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    7. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-YY1uxWpcdE

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    11. If it's not one Thing, it's another!

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    13. https://youtu.be/0YrewAXK6Hs?si=rLkeV7GSidWXYQpM

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    18. https://www.itv.com/news/2025-09-17/madeleine-mccann-prime-suspect-christian-brueckner-released-from-german-prison
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  13. https://youtu.be/fLJtpLsRnig?si=GyyLP9bElmEsAmd4

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  14. All who hold positions of power fear or hate someone. Or something.” Arihnda

    Timothy Zahn, Star Wars: Thrawn

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  15. https://youtu.be/a51D-E2ljTM?si=pxMSTG6PGYwgaKgT

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