Marriott Skewered For Asking Guests To Help Pay Its Hotel Maids

Marriott Skewered For Asking Guests To Help Pay Its Hotel Maids

The Huffington Post | By Alexander C. Kaufman | Posted: 09/17/2014 5:59 pm EDT
Excerpts:

"Hotel behemoth Marriott - which raked in nearly $13 billion in revenue last year - wants guests to cough up a little more cash to help pay its hotel maids. Surprising to no one, customers are infuriated.

The company teamed up with TV anchor and activist Maria Shriver to launch a campaign on Monday called "The Envelope Please." This week, envelopes will be placed in 160,000 Marriott hotel rooms across the U.S. and Canada requesting that guests tip the hotel's cleaning staff. Marriott owns a number of chains such as Courtyard, Residence Inn, J.W. Marriott, Ritz-Carlton and Renaissance.

"Our caring room attendants enjoyed making you stay warm and comfortable,” reads a message on the envelope. "Please feel free to leave a gratuity to express your appreciation for their efforts."

Hotel maids most certainly deserve a raise. Marriott's housekeepers are some of the lowest paid workers at the company, according to the salary research site PayScale.

On Tuesday, customers peeved at Marriott for skimping on workers wages while charging fees for widely-available amenities like wireless Internet, unloaded their anger on company's official Facebook page.

Angela Wiggins, a Marriott spokeswoman, directed The Huffington Post to a press release announcing the program. She said maids are paid above the federal minimum wage.

'The tipping initiative is a voluntary way for guests who would like to express their gratitude for good service – in the same way you would tip a bell man or wait staff," Wiggins said in a statement. "We get questions all the time from customers who don't know how much to tip housekeepers, when to tip or where to put it.' "

read:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/17/marriott-envelope-tips_n_5832074.html
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IMO: This is Mitt Romney at his best. He, his family, and the Church of the Latter Day Saints own the Marriott Hotel and made over $13 billion in revenue last year, but wants hotel guests to pay their maids in the form of gratuities

Now we know how Romney would run the country had he won the election. He is cheap, cheap for being so rich, and now he wants to continue paying minimum wage to his hotel maids, but is begging hotel guests to leave money in envelopes as they leave for the maids.

Crap, I'm embarrassed just having to write about it...and offended that Romney is asking the 47%, (he so eloquently described to a roomful of wealthy 1%ers)to help pay the maids for their overnight stays so he could keep them on minimum wage.

This is the stingy Mormon-oriented person that while running for president, made a laughingstock of himself all over Europe, and promised Netanyahu of Israel he would have America back him in any war once he got into the White House.

Romney is nothing but a pumped-up, pimped-out republican monstrosity so in love with himself. He should pay his hotel maids a living wage and not try to beg anyone for anything.

 

Why should the Marriott pay more? Democrats are busy importing millions of unskilled laborers from across the border driving wages down, down and further down.

 

Oh gawd, they reminded customers it can be nice to tip. STOP THE PRESSES ! ROUND UP THE SHEEPLE AND SPREAD THE WORD !





Good lord at the fake outrage.

 

They make a living wage....if your goal is to be a maid.

Then again, I haven't seen the press releases of all the maids dying because they make a "death wage"...

Liberal faux rage is so funny.

 

That would be true to say, if the US was a country where tip is something extra that the staff can get for doing a good job.

It isn't. In other countries, that's how tip works, but not in the US. In the US, tip is a way for the companies to dodge minimum-wage legislation and offload more of the salary directly onto the customers.

When it's up to the customer to ensure that the staff gets a decent wage, that is screwed up.

 

except they want to reduce the maids pay and for you to make up the difference , where before the maid got the min wage no matter what

how about they just add a 15% maid fee on to the bill...

funny thing is, when I go on business trips I do not want maid service for the week, they can clean my room after I leave.... most refuse to do this, even if I leave the do not disturb on my door, they still clean my room (don't want people going through my stuff)

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exactly....

 

So are you claiming the hotel is not paying min wage ? Also, a business will always depend on its customers to make sure it's employees get a wage ... Don't you understand how a business works ?

 

Same to you.

 

That's weird to me. I like the housekeeping staff doing what they do everyday. And yes, I tip them, well. In fact, I've found the larger the tip the better perks I can get from them. I just a leave a request for this or that and they deliver.
Tipping a waitress who doesn't do their job well has never set right with me, although I usually do min 20%, but tipping hotel staff always does. No matter what their function is. I consider it an investment in my comfort. But hey, that's just me.

 

I didn't see anything in the article about cutting the housekeepers wage. Is that something you read elsewhere?

Envelope or no envelope, I've been tipping housekeepers for as long as I remember. ...except the one in Puerto Rico who used my wife's hair brush. ...Don't know what the big stink is all about.

 

We all know people staying in the Marriott can't afford to tip, shame on conservatives who probably maybe own the Marriott asking someone else to pay their bills for them when they could have just raised their prices instead... liberals make no sense anymore.

 

Bazinga? LOL.

 

most hotels do not give you a personal maid, if your in that kinda hotel, you need to be tipping...

 

liberals make no sense, you make no sense, pay them a living wage and if people want to tip on top of that they will

 

Please show me where it says that they are reducing the maids pay? I see no evidence of that in the OP, so I guess you have a source. Share it.

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Well, actually, until this initiative, tipping hotel maids was just that--a thanks for good service.

 

No, they are ALREADY paid above the minimum wage and no one is suggesting their hourly wage be reduced.

 

I love this living wage demand from the urchin .

 

I don't get it, either. I didn't know you were not supposed to tip housekeepers.

I get the impression that the people who are making a big stink out of this are the tightwads who are too (*)(*)(*)(*)ing cheap to tip their maids. I couldn't possibly care less about their bawling...
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I love it how some people think it's not their personal responsibility to earn a "living" wage.

I've worked at places where I wasn't completely enthralled with my salary. You know what I did? I got another, higher paying job.

I know, it's a completely insane idea to exercise control and responsibility over one's own life and affairs...

 

The so-called living wage would mean staying at the Marriott would be more expensive, so it would be as if you were tipping them a lot in terms of the cost to you.

 

so you want them paid less than a living wage so you can stay their cheaper... got it

 

So, you don't want to pay those people more money so they can make a "living" wage - you want other people to pay for it. Got it.

 

I don't want them to have to depend on tips to make a living wage, hardly anyone tips the maid, for one, they hardly ever see them, two, the same maid doesn't necessarily service your place all week, one of many do

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I didn't say that, I just think it's not feasible to decouple lower incomes from government welfare assistance at this point. It would wreck our economy. Raising wages would likely correspond with a welfare reduction in case that hadn't occurred to you yet. So if you want them having more money, proposals like this offer no net change assuming they really are below a living wage because they'd be receiving a state subsidy right now and it would likely be reduced if they were earning more. If you just want them to have more money period... try tipping them. That is the point of tipping after all!