This study of the experiences of hotel housekeepers in Toronto, who are predominantly immigrant women of colour, reveals the damaging health impact of their work. As the hotel industry in this ‘global city’ has moved upmarket and sought to offer more luxury services to its wealthy customers, hotel housekeeping work has become more physically demanding and burdensome, resulting in the majority of workers experiencing a high degree of pains and injuries. The hotel industry is seen as operating a racialised division of labour, with those at the bottom vulnerable to being discarded as they approach retirement age and their health deteriorates. Finally, an account is given of the impact of unionisation and the hotel workers’ ongoing struggles for change.
A. Verma, I. Juanairo, J. Mercer, J. Bowdring, L. Briskin, P. Kumar, R. Adams and S. Tufts, An Industry at a Crossroads: a high road economic vision for Toronto hotels (Toronto, Toronto Task Force on the Hotel Industry, 2006), p. 5.
2.
Ibid, p. 5.
3.
Ibid, p. 6.
4.
Precarious employment includes forms of work involving limited social benefits and statutory entitlements, job insecurity, low wages and a high risk of ill-health. It is shaped by employment status, various forms of employment (temporary, seasonal, part-time) and dimensions of labour market insecurity (SARS, for example, hit the hotel industry in the summer of 2003), as well as social context (what type of industry, full-service, luxury) and social location (gender, race/ethnicity). See L. Vosko, ed., Precarious Employment: understanding labour market insecurity in Canada (Canada, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006); A. Lewchuck, A. De Wolff, A. King and M. Polanyi, ‘The hidden costs of precarious employment: health and the employment relationship’, in Vosko, Precarious Employment, op. cit., pp. 141-62.
5.
S. Sassen, Cities in a World Economy(California, Pine Forge Press, 2006).
6.
Verma et al., An Industry at a Crossroads, op. cit., p. 4.
7.
W. Giles and S. Arat-Koç, Maid in the Market: women’s paid domestic labour( Halifax, Fernwood Publishing, 1994 ) ; B.S. Bolaria and P. Li , ‘Theories and policies of racial domination’ , in B. S. Bolaria and P. Li, eds, Racial Oppression in Canada (Toronto, Garamond Press, 1988), pp. 27-40.
8.
K. Maher, ‘Globalized social reproduction: women migrants and the citizenship gap’, in A. Brysk and G. Shafir, eds, People Out of Place: globalization, human rights and the citizenship gap (New York and London, Routledge, 2004), pp. 131-51.
9.
W. Giles, ‘It’s the foreigners who do the laundry: the work of Portuguese chambermaids in London hotels’, in Giles and Arat-Koç, Maid in the Market, op. cit.
10.
R. Sherman, Class Acts: service and inequality in luxury hotels (Berkeley , University of California Press, 2007).
11.
Giles, ‘It’s the foreigners who do the laundry’, op. cit.; T. Lee and N. Krause, ‘The impact of worker health study on working conditions’, Journal of Public Health Policy(Vol. 23, no. 3, 2002), pp. 268-85.
12.
N. Kelley and M. Trebilcock, The Making of the Mosaic: a history of Canadian immigration policy ( Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1998), p. 441.
13.
<http://www.unitehere.ca>.
14.
Creating Luxury, Enduring Pain: how hotel work is hurting housekeepers (Unite Here, 2006), p.7.
15.
Ibid, p. 6.
16.
Ibid, p. 3.
17.
Ibid, p. 7; T. Scherzer, R. Rugulies and N. Krause, ‘Work-related pain and injury and barriers to workers’ compensation among Las Vegas hotel room cleaners’, American Journal of Public Health(Vol. 95, no. 3, 2005), pp. 83-488; Lee and Krause, ‘The impact of worker health study on working conditions’, op. cit.
18.
I. Hyman and S. Guruge, ‘A review of theory and health promotion strategies for new immigrant women’, Canadian Journal of Public Health(Vol. 93, no. 3, 2002), pp. 183-87.
19.
Lee and Krause, ‘The impact of worker health study on working conditions’, op. cit., p. 227.
20.
E. Ng, R. Wilkins, F. Gendron and J. Berthelot, ‘Healthy today, healthy tomorrow? Findings from the national population health survey’, in Issue 2 - Dynamics of Immigrants’ Health in Canada: evidence from the national population health survey( Statistics Canada, 2007).
21.
T. McDonald and S. Kennedy, ‘Insights into the "Healthy Immigrant Effect": health status and health service use of immigrants to Canada’ , Social Science & Medicine(Vol. 59, 1613-1627, 2004); S. Noh and V. Kaspar, ‘Diversity and immigrant health’ , in P. Anisef and M. Lanphier, eds, The World in a City( Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2003), pp. 316-53.
22.
D. Gastaldo , ‘Transnational health promotion: social well-being across borders and immigrant women’s subjectivities’ , Wagadu (Vol. 2, 1-16, 2005); C. Egan and L. Gardner, ‘Racism, women’s health and reproductive freedom’, in V. Zawilski & C. Levine-Raskey, eds, Inequality in Canada( Don Mills, Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 241-51.
23.
I. Hay, Qualitative Research Methods in Human Geography, 2nd Edition (Australia, Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 17. This study was a small-scale qualitative venture that used several integrated methods from oral (five semi-structured interviews, narratives), textual (news articles, academic studies, task force reports) to participatory methods (participant observation at a workers’ rally). The group of participants in this study does not form a representative sample of hotel housekeepers in the area. Instead, this research took a narrative analysis approach which used the narratives of the participants as empirical evidence.
24.
Table 1 is extracted from my Ryerson University master’s thesis of 2008. Each participant was offered the choice of an alias to protect their identities. One participant chose to use her real name.
25.
S. Elgersma, Immigrant Seniors’ Economic Security and International Social Security Agreements (Political and Social Affairs Division, Parliament of Canada, 2007), <http://www.2.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/ResearchPublications/prb0745-e.htm>.
26.
Ibid. The Canadian Pension Plan is a social insurance programme based on contributions and earnings. Anyone who has made at least one valid contribution is eligible to receive a monthly retirement pension starting at the age of 60.
27.
Verma et al., An Industry at a Crossroads, op. cit., p. 17.
28.
S. Tufts, ‘Renewal from different directions: the case of Unite-Here Local 75’ , in P. Kumar and C. Schenk, eds, Paths to Union Renewal: Canadian experiences (Canada, Broadview Press , 2006), pp. 201-19.
29.
Ibid, p. 203.
30.
S. Freeman , ‘Hotel staff need help: study’, Toronto Star(3 August 2008).
