Maid strike in Spain: The uprising of the maids

The sun has just risen up behind the hills of the island, but the women are already on the road, where the hotels and holiday resorts are located. They wear whistles and placards saying, "It's time to fight for our rights." Actually, Milagros Carreño, 54, would now have to clean the room. Instead, she marches on with about 30 colleagues and calls: "Stop the exploitation".

Milagros Carreño lives in Ibiza and is "Camarera de piso", which translates in German probably most likely with the word "chambermaid". The term is actually misleading, after all, there are also some men who do the job. And many of those who protest this morning are not young girls, but seasoned women: just like Carreño, who has two grown children.

Lucia Heisterkamp / SPIEGEL ONLINE

Milagros Carreño

"Our job is a bone job," she says. Poor wages, unpaid overtime and a daily schedule that sooner or later makes you sick: "Many of us have to clean up 30 rooms a day, and if we have to go fast, we only have 15 minutes per room." During this time she would have to wipe the floors, make the beds, clean the bathroom, change the towels.

To draw attention to poor working conditions, Carreño called for a strike this weekend. She is spokeswoman for "Las Kellys", an advocacy group of maids in Spain. On the islands of Ibiza and Formentera, the hotel's cleaners are expected to put a stop to work for 48 hours - in the middle of the high season.

Striking is not everywhere

Some have followed the call. The Hotel Palace Ibiza is in for a mess this morning. Of the 40 maids who work for the 4-star resort and its partner hotel, only 12 have arrived to work, says the receptionist at the reception. In the corridor of the second floor you can already see the first traces of it: On the carpet sticks dirt, sand and earth, here obviously no one has sucked in the morning. A woman with a cleaning cart hurries past, she is one of the few maids who came today. "Now I have to do the work of the others," she says, shrugs and flits quickly into the next room.

In the Hotel Ibiza Playa, however, is cleaned as usual: At noon, the beds are made fresh, new towels hanging in the bathroom. "I'm not striking," says Loli, one of the maids in the house. "I'm paid every day, so I can not afford not to come to work for an entire weekend."

In fact, most hotels are running normally. Some have heard nothing of the call for advocacy. Others are afraid of losing their jobs, says Carreño. She does not know how many of her colleagues followed the call of the "Kellys". "Especially the younger ones do not dare to stand up for their rights".

The dark side of liberalization

The pressure on the cleaning staff is great: many are employed only for the summer months, those who are unlucky will not get a new contract next year. Tourism is booming in Spain: 83 million visitors came last year. The country is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.

But not everyone benefits from it. For the approximately 20,000 maids in Spain, the summer months are tough. "We see all the luxury around us, but live very precarious ourselves," says Carreño. For her full-time job, she earns 1300 euros net - that is very little on a holiday island like Ibiza, where the prices for tourists are made.

The "Kellys" demand in the first place no better pay, but above all humane working conditions. "The time pressure we work on is just too high," says Carreño. "The hoteliers have to hire more staff so we have plenty of time to clean the rooms." Sometimes, on an 8-hour day, there would not even be time to go to the bathroom.

Lucia Heisterkamp / SPIEGEL ONLINE

Beach in Ibiza

The situation has deteriorated particularly with the liberalization of the labor market in 2012. At that time, the conservative government of the then Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy tried to bring the country out of the crisis by means of reforms. It has been made easier for companies to lay off permanent staff and temporarily hire others through temporary work contracts. Unemployment has fallen sharply in Spain and the economy has largely recovered. But the downside is millions of precarious jobs - like the maids.

The consequences of the bone job: Chronic discomfort

Carreño has been doing its job for 30 years. She used to like room service, she says. "You had time to talk to the guests, in between times to chat with the other maids." The customer review has been automatically translated from German. Today, she often can not even make half an hour for lunch.

A problem was also unpleasant guests. "Many tourists let the pig out of here," says Carreño. "When they get drunk, they break the television or smash glasses." Often she has a backache from working hard furniture and constantly bending over while cleaning. "When I come home in the evening, I fall on the sofa and sometimes I can not get up at all."

The hectic, unhealthy work routine also causes many chambermaids eventually developed chronic complaints: "Many of us have to take painkillers to endure," says Carreño. The maids therefore demand that the retirement age be reduced from 67 to 60 years. "No one doing our job can work like this when they're over 60," says Carreño. She worries that her body will not go through the hardships in a few years.

Especially the big chains save on the staff

The head of Human Resources at the Hotel Ibiza Playa can understand the displeasure of women like Carreño. "There are hotels that treat their staff very badly," he says. "They hire far too few people to save money." But not all hotels are the same. It was rather the big chains that treated their employees less well.

A big hotel chain also includes the Alua Miami Ibiza. Apparently, the department has expected that a large part of the staff is on strike. In the elevator hangs a note that says that the rooms are not cleaned on weekends.

The married couple Kohl from Frankfurt, who is currently vacationing in the hotel, understands this. "Those who earn too little have to strike," says Hannelore Kohl. "You can handle it as a guest ever, if the room is not cleaned," says her husband. "The strike must also bring something."

The boss in the hotel is for an opinion not to speak, he was busy the whole day - because of the strikes, it is at the front desk. The situation is similar at the Palace Ibiza. "We have four managers for our two hotels, which we all can not reach in hours," says the receptionist. "Those are somewhere in the hotels - room clean." The customer review has been automatically translated from German.