Why Shouldn't Housekeepers Make $60,000 Per Year?

February 15, 2012 - Thanks to Nathan Newman for this excellent article from the Huffington Post - link is below.

Last week the NYC hotel workers union in and management came to an agreement that would lead to housekeepers in major hotels making $60,000 a year by the end of the seven year contract. That's a 30% increase over their current $46,000. pay scale. Both of these numbers are way above the pay for housekeepers in most all hotel chains across the country except in highly unionized areas, like Las Vegas, LA, Chicago. In fact - in many high end resorts in the Caribbean, housekeepers depend upon your daily tips to supplement an almost slave labor level of pay. Remember that on your way to your winter vacation.

Most level-headed commentators and even NYC's Daily News applauded the victory - calling it "the kind of labor relations that should be more widespread."  As Nathan Newman points out in his brilliant piece - it is exactly these types of union victories and these types of union living wages that create the new middle class, that solidify gains made in job sectors that cannot be moved overseas by rapacious transnational conglomerates.

So of course - Fixxed news led the charge to denounce "the nightmare," of having decently paid housekeepers. As Newman points out - this despicable criticism was being spewed by infotainment commentators making five to ten times that level of pay.

Read the whole article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-newman/why-shouldnt-housekeepers_b_1277036.html