These are the hidden victims of the coronavirus crisis
We hate not being able to eat out, hospitality entrepreneurs are stressed because they see their savings evaporate, and hospitality suppliers are stuck because they can’t sell their products. Who are we missing from this list? Exactly: the cleaners of hotels and restaurants, who always work incredibly hard behind the scenes and are now left en masse without work, without money and without help. Het Parool published an impressive article about it this weekend.
According to the newspaper, it concerns thousands of hospitality cleaners who have lost their jobs in recent months. Many cleaning staff work on on-call contracts, so they were almost immediately unemployed, but people with contracts are also now out of work or sitting at home. The newspaper sees them as hidden victims of the coronavirus crisis. They are often people from Eastern Europe and West Africa who came to work here on questionable contracts. Or rather, used to.
More work, less money
The CNV trade union knows that some of this group are now doing other work, with just as little security, such as parcel delivery or meal delivery. A smaller group is still working, but has to do more and more for less and less money. The newspaper gives Oumar as an example: he now not only cleans hotel rooms, but his employer also requires him to wash dishes and clean the kitchen. More hours, for less money. If he doesn’t? Then dismissal threatens.
Homeless shelters full
What are the consequences? The homeless shelter in Amsterdam is overflowing, and increasingly more unemployed migrant workers have been staying there for the past few months. Work and housing are often linked, and no work also means… no home. And no money to return to the country they came from. Four hundred extra sleeping places have been created specifically for this group, but that is not enough.
Twenty minutes per room
Hospitality entrepreneurs also foresee a problem when the hospitality industry is allowed to reopen. By then, all their cleaners will have disappeared. And cleaning hotel rooms is not easy; within twenty minutes a cleaner has to be finished. If the capital fills up again during Easter weekend, there will surely not be enough experienced cleaners to tidy and clean everything, hotel owners fear. That means even more pressure on the people who are still walking around with cleaning carts.
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Source: Het Parool
