Secretary for equality promises review of working conditions for cleaners, most of whom are women

The French government has held talks with hotel cleaners’ agencies amid several strikes and picket lines by staff at hotels across the country over working hours and conditions.

Marlène Schiappa, the secretary for gender equality, has promised a review of working conditions for hotel cleaners, most of whom are women, and who are often made to work staggered hours early in the morning and late at night.

Picket lines have appeared outside several hotels over the past year with cleaners, laundry staff and kitchen porters protesting over working hours and pay. In Marseille, one top hotel has faced daily protests outside its front doors by cleaning staff for more than two months. The female hotel cleaners, who work for a contractor, said they wanted their rights respected.

Schiappa has promised a review by the state’s council for job equality, which will make suggestions by the end of the year on how to improve working conditions for hotel cleaners as well as cleaners of office buildings, many of whom have to work early mornings or late nights rather than standard day-time hours.

She said contractors “often say it’s the hotel who doesn’t want to see cleaners present during the daytime. And the hotel says that it’s a request from clients. Is it possible to insist that these women are never seen? For me, that’s a form of dehumanisation.”

Schiappa said gender equality was not just about fighting for women’s access to top jobs but also protecting the lower paid. She told Le Parisien newspaper that office workers should also get used to cleaners working around them during the day.

She said her great-grandmother was a cleaner whose difficult working conditions were not very different from those today.

On Wednesday, Schiappa met federations for hotel cleaners as well as agencies to hold the first talks.

But one branch of the left-leaning CGT union representing cleaners staged a demonstration outside, saying it had not been invited.

Politicians from the left party France Unbowed addressed the crowd gathered outside ministerial buildings. Danielle Simonnet, a Paris councillor for the party, said: “In Marseille, female hotel cleaners are being repressed. In Paris there are luxury hotels that reap gigantic profits, where women are fighting for their rights and the feminist struggle.” She criticised hotels’ use of subcontractors for cleaning.

Cleaners have gone on strike at several hotels in recent months, including a 32-day strike at two hotels in Suresnes outside Paris, which led to 20 cleaners, laundry staff and kitchen porters recently agreeing improved working conditions and pay. Other luxury hotels in Paris last year settled long-running disputes after picket lines were set up outside.