The First Star has inside information that housekeeping staff are forced to finish a large number of rooms and if they are not able to get through them in the allotted time then they do them in their own time without overtime pay.
And what about the linen? A cost cutting measure has seen the amount of linen dwindle which means there doesn’t always seem to be enough to go around. This means that housekeepers hide linen from each other to make sure they’ve got enough for their rooms. For the poor unfortunates who don’t manage to hide a big enough stash they have to wait until the linen has been laundered and then go back and finish their rooms. Did we mention the fact that there is no such thing as unpaid overtime?
The Four Points in Sydney also seem to have a real problem with understanding workers’ rights. It appears that management don’t believe in freedom of association. Examples of this include management taking union flyers off activists when they were handing them out in their own time. In fact, one union activist was dragged into the Human Resource Department to be questioned about union work.
As part of the Starwood chain, Four Points is environmentally, beginning to at least talk the talk. As Starwood CEO, Frits van Paasschen, said recently, “A reader wants to know if going green is going on the backburner due to the economy. The answer is an emphatic, no. And, in fact, we will continue to increase our green effort over the next few years to provide a hotel stay that’s good for the environment, good for guests and good for business…Now more that ever is the time for large, international companies like Starwood to step forward in the area of environmental stewardship.”
The Four Points is bronze benchmarked by a global environmental accreditation program called Green Globe. As Green globe describes it…The Green Globe Benchmarking (Bronze) and Certification (Silver) process focuses on making operational improvements – this can provide great marketing opportunities as you communicate some of your organisations key achievements by associating with the Green Globe program, participants are connected with a highly respected international organisation committed to the environment. By associating with the Green Globe program, participants are connected with highly respected international organisation committed to the environment.
