(en) France, Coordination of Anarchist Groups - IAL #102 - Social struggles: Struggles maids: the real dirt is insecure! (fr, it, pt)

 (en) France, Coordination of Anarchist Groups - IAL #102 -
Social struggles: Struggles maids: the real dirt is insecure! (fr, it,
pt) [machine translation]

In times of social resignation, struggles and victories in cleaning and in hotels reveal 
that when the balance of power is the struggle pays! ---- Recently in hotels, after 35 
days of strike at the Royal Monceau luxury hotel, the maids, housekeepers, valets, 
teammate ? e ? s, cook ? e ? s, server ? s ? honest, bartenders and diver ? honest ? s got 
an increase of 3 to 6% of their salaries. This represents an average increase from 60 to 
103 euros per month. The strike also helped that mutual support is 60% by the employer, 
whereas it is today only 50%. A premium of 150 euros will also be given to teammate ? e ? 
s while maids and valets get a premium of 6.5 euros per extra bed. Their demands were an 
increase in their hourly rate of two euros, the decrease in the rate, improve their 
working conditions and the assumption of mutual to 70% by the employer.

Strike a year of women in society Arcade room started in March 2002, to those of women in 
hotels for large groups, the same slogans and claims reappeared: outsourcing = abuse, 
lower rates, full payment of the hours, equal status of all ? e ? s the employee ? e ? s, 
integration with the order of the donor employee ? e ? s outsourcing, respect for their 
dignity, judgment of the anti-union repression, the return to the time clock to end unpaid 
hours.

The purpose of outsourcing is strategic, in hotels and in general cleaning. This is to 
break the working community and achieve more profits by underpaying maids, nannies and 
teammate ? e ? s (usually - 15 to - 40%) who did not benefit from the collective agreement 
of the hotel break any attempt at revolt and union struggle and even divide the work, the 
employee ? e ? s, making it difficult to collective action. Employees ? e ? s and mainly 
worker ? e ? s can not be ignored ? e ? s. The fight gives them an existence in society.

In March 2002, room women employed by Arcade, subcontractor Accor, stopped work to assert 
their rights. It is an unprecedented protest movement, which takes the form where it is 
least expected. Thirty women, mostly mothers, African, little education, invisibilis?es, 
may overcome their fear, to talk, to show their commitment and scream. They were paid to 
the chamber by the subcontractor: 2 euros per room, and to: 4 bedrooms per hour. Work 
organization resulting in high speed, and the unpaid overtime. Following a long strike 
that lasts from March 2002 to March 2003, management of the Accor group agreed in December 
2002 to sign a charter in which it undertook to ensure better working conditions for 
employees ? e ? s outsourcing companies. But after some effort, the resolutions were 
forgotten.

The fight has inspired envy and the idea for employees of other hotels that fighting pays 
and that it is possible and winnable. Since then, the struggles and strikes not stop in 
Parisian hotels, but also in Marseille, in luxury hotels such as Novotel, 
Intercontinental, Royal Monceau Park Hyatt Paris-Vend?me.

October 6 to 8 November 2011, the maids at the Novotel Les Halles in Paris (Accor) 
conducted a conflict that has allowed them to get the CSD passage CDI - with hourly 130 
monthly hours - eight maids, plus a housekeeper went on permanent full-time.

In 2012, 100% of the employee ? e ? s (maids and housekeepers) of the cleaning company 
DECA France IDF, subcontractor Campanile and Premi?re Classe the Pont de Suresnes 
(Hauts-de-Seine), made strike for 28 days, from 20 March to 16 April 2012, along with an 
internal staff of hotels. Backed by their unions CGT-HPE (prestigious hotels and economic) 
and CNT-SO-cleaning), they did give society Louvre Hotels, the second hotel group in 
France, which operates restaurants under the brand Campanile hotels-Class, Kyriad and 
Golden Tulip.

They got their integration within the Louvre Hotels Group with effect from 1 August 2013 
Nineteen be employed on permanent contracts (three nannies) and three fixed-term contracts.

After graduating in March-April 2012 after work to the room with the establishment of a 
welder for a payment to actual working time, the reduction in the indicative rates of 25%, 
an increase in their monthly payment, a revaluation almost 100 EUR of their monthly 
salary, the removal of their mobility clause and the payment of 50% of the strike days, 
the other 50% recovered, maids and nannies, following the economic difficulties DECA 
France IDF bankruptcy reorganization, just obtained their union CGT-HPE, under threat of a 
strike in the event of arrival of a new subcontractor, integration within Louvre Hotels 
from 1 August 2013. This exploitation suffered for several years with outsourcing thus ends.

With this integration, maids and nannies will be subject to the social status of the 
society of the Pont de Suresnes Hotels and thus earn a 13th month bonus 
dressing-undressing, upgrading food allowances, profit sharing and the non-existent profit 
in the outsourcing of cleaning companies.

A month later, encouraged ? e ? s by this result, maids, valets and porters at the Park 
Hyatt Paris-Vend?me, only Parisian palace to do any work of employees under contract, have 
followed suit.

The conflict is mediated. The strikers get a end bonus equivalent year to a thirteenth 
month. A year later, in September 2014, the same employee ? e ? s go on strike again, 
bringing with them their colleagues Hyatt Paris-Madeleine. Most of the palace staff had 
gathered to launch a surprise strike on indefinitely. This time, they claim successfully 
align their salaries with those of palaces. For employees ? e ? s strikers, it's about a 
400 to 600 euros per month.

At the intersection of gender oppression, race, class, these struggles show the true 
picture of luxury hotels, over-precarious employee ? e ? s, the use of outsourcing to the 
extreme, the employment of women in situations of poverty and dependence on-a-vis their 
work. We are looking for people who have difficulty reading and writing with French, 
chosen to be the most bondsmen as possible: this is the true face of the multinationals 
and capitalism. In taking strike, these often invisible women assert themselves in the 
political arena. One can notice that the social struggle is a tool of social 
transformation, not only economic, in that it is a collective awareness of our strength 
and our ability to overthrow the established order.

Salute the courage of all those employee ? e ? s ultra precarious ? e ? s who dared to 
strike and defend their rights and win new ones. The exemplary collaboration between trade 
unions strike fund, the financial support of union branches and head ? e ? s surroundings, 
judicial pressure relentlessly unionization of employees ? e ? s and patient work 
conducted jointly by trade unions CGT and CNT-HPE-SO-cleaning, to build unity between 
personnel in hotels and the cleaning company allowed a move that could prove decisive for 
the employee ? e ? s sector. The victories may question the collective agreement and thus 
to gain new rights to the remaining worker ? honest ? s the same group.

At a time when the CGT oscillates between unionism and social transformation accompanying 
unionism, one can notice a base radicalization in some sections and CGT which sometimes 
comes to a trade union struggle that did all its strength and its potential subversive, 
and we can only encourage at a time when only reign resignation.

These struggles are exemplary in that they offer hope in times of over-insecurity, lack of 
major social struggle. They show that there is a real place for militant unionism 
struggles and fight alongside operated ? e ? s, and it is among the exploited classes ? e 
? s social struggles that are able to s 'flourish. We must discard the seeds of anarchism 
on the most fertile land, this land is our class struggle that takes place in the popular 
mobilizations and social struggles. It is only in the fight alongside the exploited ? e ? 
s anarchism and especially social anarchism makes sense and can thrive for a radical 
transformation of society.

Yanis, Clermont and Peter Lyon

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http://www.vacarme.org/article1117.html


http://www.20minutes.fr/economie/1477474?20141108?monde?feutre?palaces?parisiens?secoue?revolte?femmes?chambre

http://www.lefigaro.fr/social/2014/10/08/09010?20141008ARTFIG00147?dans?les?palaces?le?combat?des?femmes?de?chambre?pour?les?salaires?fait?tache?d?huile.php

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Filmon strike on the strugglehttp://www.zeugmafilms.fr/crbst_93.html


http://www.c-g-a.org/motion/luttes-des-femmes-de-chambre-la-vraie-salete-cest-la-precarite