Marriott Hotels is starting a new campaign: When you're staying at our hotel, tip our housekeeper! That's the message from Marriott Hotels. It is placing envelopes in more than 160,000 rooms in the United States and Canada to encourage tipping the people who clean guest rooms. The suggested tip is $1 -$5 per day, left daily, as the same housekeeper may not clean your room each day. Here's what it looks like:
That's what it looks like, but this is what is sounds like to me: Why yes, you are paying one to three hundred bucks per night to stay in one of our rooms with a bed & bathroom. And yes, our housekeepers are under paid and over worked, cleaning up your mess an average of 15 times per eight our shift, one half hour per room. And yes, our executive management team does make millions in annual salary, plus bonus, plus stock incentive, plus full health insurance, plus many other perks. But we manage to rake in millions in profits by paying our housekeepers only minimum wage - or a buck or two more at our $300 per night 'luxury' hotels - and rarely with any benefits like health insurance, sick days, or paid leave. So please help them make ends meet by leaving them a couple bucks on the night stand - you did want clean sheets, didn't you?
You know what, Marriott? Screw you! How about you just pay them a decent, livable wage in the first place, instead of you trying to shame me into helping out the housekeepers that YOU over work, and that YOU under pay?
Please follow me over the fold while I get this rant going.
The campaign to get folks paying a hundred bucks a night for a room with a bed and bathroom to leave an extra buck or two on the nightstand for the usually unseen over worked and underpaid lady who cleans your mess up after you is sure to be duplicated by other hotel chains. It's a dream come true for them - instead of having to pay the housekeeping staff a living wage, we get to keep them at minimum wage while shaming our customers into paying even more by leaving them tips. And the danger here is that if housekeepers become regularly tipped, they could become classified as "tipped employees" like food servers and bartenders, meaning instead of paying them the federal minimum wage of $7.25, they could be paid the "tripped employee" federal minimum wage of only $2.13 for employees reporting $30 or more in tips per month, unchanged since the early 1990s. A dream come true for the hotel industry! And as "tipped employees" the IRS would require them to declare a minimum amount and pay income, Social Security & Medicare taxes. I worked in restaurant and hotel management, and those tipped employees get almost no paycheck from their $2.13 minimum wage, almost all of it goes to tax withholding. At a minimum, if housekeepers become regularly tipped employees with $30 or more in tips each month you can expect the IRS to jump in and demand they report those tips and be taxed on them. Never mind the Mitt Romneys with $100 million stuffed away tax free offshore, we can't let those maids get away with not paying taxes on their $45 per month in nightstand tips!
This would be a giant step backward for workers in the hospitality industry! Don't leave a tip for the underpaid, overworked person who cleans up your room after you, demand they be paid a living wage!
Surprisingly, Marriott is launching the program in conjunction with A Woman's Nation, an organization for the advancement of women in the workplace spearheaded by former California First Lady Maria Shriver. Their website proudly proclaims this new "initiative".
I wasn't familiar with A Woman's Nation. Their "about" section states:
A Woman’s Nation is dedicated to making sure that the value of women is recognized and respected – at home, in the workplace and as caretakers on the frontlines of humanity. Through its multimedia initiatives and innovative partnerships, A Woman’s Nation informs, inspires, and ignites change in hearts and minds.
I'm sure they have good intentions, and hopefully some other achievements. But IMHO, trying to shame hotel guests into leaving a buck or two on the nightstand is NOT advancing women in the workplace, and not making sure the value of women in the workplace is recognized and respected.
Demanding they be paid a living wage is.