Spanish hotel maids, angry over outsourcing of their jobs and wage cuts, are taking to social media to reach out to travelers and travel sites to tell their story.
Las Kellys (a pun on las que limpian, those who clean) has created a quality seal to identify hotels that provide good working conditions, and are asking TripAdvisor and other booking sites to include it in listings; they say they believe that most clients don’t want to stay in hotels where staff is treated poorly.
Under laws passed by the Spanish government that was just replaced, hotels were able to outsource the work; the mostly-women cleaners now work for companies that appear to have the same wages, but actually have increased the workload so that cleaners must work unpaid overtime to finish their work.
The maids are also appearing in public events with their green T-shirts and safety helmets to make the point that they are inspecting hotels for compliance and decent working conditions.
