Housekeeper Advocates For Changes

Elizabeth Sumo says hotel renovations have made her job as a housekeeper harder. (Lucian Perkins -- The Washington Post)

Elizabeth Sumo always starts with the beds.

That's the hardest part of cleaning a room at the Renaissance Mayflower hotel in downtown Washington, where she is a housekeeper, so she does it first.

The hotel used to have thin bedspreads that she could fling across the bed with relative ease. Now, after a recent renovation, she must lug a thicker blanket that may be the height of comfort for hotel guests but feels to her like it weighs 25 pounds. And where there used to be three pillows on each king-sized bed, there are now seven. Each pillowcase needs to be changed daily.

Other renovations have made her job harder, Sumo said. For instance, the thick new carpeting means she must lean nearly horizontally to push the big cleaning cart down the hallway because the wheels sink into the plush carpet. (A representative of hotel management says that new carts have been ordered that won't have that problem).

Sumo has to clean 15 rooms a day, just as she has since she started at the Mayflower in 1992. But she said the renovations have meant that she goes home more exhausted, while her pay has risen over the years barely enough to cover the higher cost of living. "You have to do it," Sumo said Saturday. "You have kids to support. But it's hard."

The daily struggles of people such as Sumo are at the core of a threatened strike of 14 major D.C. hotels, including the Mayflower. Negotiations between Sumo's union, the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 25, and the hotels broke off abruptly Wednesday. Union members spent the weekend making picket signs and receiving training to prepare for a strike, a process that the union's executive secretary-treasurer, John A. Boardman, said will continue today. The union claims workers are being overworked by hotels seeking to save money.

"These issues are some of the issues we're working on as part of the negotiations," said Lynn Lawson, a spokeswoman for the Hotel Association of Washington. "We take any concerns the employees have seriously and try to address them. There are open lines of communication between employees and their supervisors."

Speaking on behalf of Mayflower's general manager, Lawson cited the housekeeping cart situation as an example of that communication. "Management did not realize that the new carpet would impact movability. When it was discovered that the workers were having problems, there were three new sample carts brought in and the housekeepers voted on which cart they would prefer to use. They have been ordered, but are not in yet. One by one, we're trying to work through these issues."

After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, tourism in Washington plummeted, hurting hotels. Many laid off workers. But now tourism and business travel appear to be robust. According to Smith Travel Research, hotels in the District had 78.4 percent occupancy in July, compared with 74.1 percent in July 2001. In addition, the city has 600 more hotel rooms now than three years ago. But employment by the city's "accommodation" businesses was exactly the same, at 14,700, according to Labor Department data.

The union says that unfairly burdens its members. In the case of housekeepers like Sumo, the union wants to lower the quota of rooms each must clean in a day by one, to 14 in the Mayflower. It wants to further reduce the quota if the rooms are on different floors or if the guest has checked out, because that means a more thorough cleaning is required.

The union is asking that any increase in workloads be first negotiated with the union. It is asking for increased protection from abusive managers and rules to stop managers from bothering workers on their breaks.

"It is important to note that the hotels have an employee retention rate of 85 percent and an average length of time at a property of 10 years. Would that many employees remain in their jobs for that many years if conditions were bad?" Lawson said.

Unlike other recent labor negotiations, the sides are not all that far apart on their wage and benefit demands. The hotels have offered to continue paying workers' health insurance premiums. And they have offered employees raises of 30 cents an hour; the union is asking for raises of 90 cents an hour. Under the current contract, housekeepers, laundry workers and other employees who do not regularly receive tips have a minimum wage of $13 an hour. Waiters, bellmen and others who get tipped are paid lower base salaries but typically end up making more with tip income.

In addition to work rules and benefits, the two sides are at odds over the length of the contract. The union wants a two-year contract, so the agreement will expire the same year as contracts in New York, Chicago, and other major cities. Hotels say they want a three-year contract to lock in costs. The union argues that having contract negotiations in several major cities at the same time will give it more leverage in its battle to turn hotel jobs into solid, middle-class positions.

That's what Elizabeth Sumo hopes will happen. Sumo and her husband, Emerson Sumo immigrated from Liberia in 1992 and found hotel jobs soon after. Emerson Sumo works at the Hyatt Regency Washington, another one of the 14 hotels that could be hit by a strike, as a so-called utility man -- meaning he fills in for whatever department needs him on a given day.

When Elizabeth Sumo, now 40, first entered the Mayflower, where rooms this week start at $289 a night, it was the fanciest place she had ever seen. "I was impressed," she said.

Their hotel jobs enabled them to buy a small house in Prince George's County, near Takoma Park. Elizabeth Sumo's framed certificate of completion from the Mayflower's customer service training program and Emerson Sumo's framed "Award for Extra Effort" from the Hyatt hangs on the living room wall, just down from their 14-year-old son's soccer trophies.

She takes home $374 a week after taxes; he makes about the same. With their earnings, they first make their $1,600 monthly mortgage payment. The rest goes for food and living expenses for themselves and five of their six children (the oldest, 25, has his own place).

Emerson and Elizabeth Sumo left for work yesterday morning at about 8:20, piling into their Nissan Altima with a cracked windshield. Elizabeth Sumo put in eight hours, wrapping up at 5:30, another 15 rooms cleaned.

Weekends can be particularly tough. Guests sleep late, so rooms aren't available to be cleaned until later. And rooms occupied by families of tourists often take longer to clean. "Sometimes there's a cot and two double beds," Elizabeth Sumo said. "It takes a long time."

Elizabeth Sumo is worried about a strike -- her family has practically no savings. "This is my first time doing something like this. I don't know what we're going to do. It's going to be bad. But I want to gain my respect. It's a lot of stress, but we have to do it."