A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:I saw a guest room cleaner job advertised at 15-20 hours per week. I took the job. I started thursday, and so far have worked 15 hours, and thats not including thursday the day I started when I was there for 3 hours filling in the paper work. I am even hoping I dont get paid for that because I have just signed up for tax credits! If you're in the Uk you will know what those are. 16 hours is what I informed tax credits I would be working, the manager of the hotel said over a month it will work out at 16 a week on average. Rubbish!There are 2 other cleaners, one is french, they are youngsters, they have only been there 3 weeks, and the guy had his last day today. We get paid per room it seems, I thought they just preferred us to do them in 20 minutes, but no, we get paid 20 minutes per room, so have to do 3 in an hour which is impossible. They take atleast half an hour, and thats if you go fast! Thats why the guy is leaving he said its a con. The french girl goes away for a week friday, and says when she comes back she's looking for another job. So muggins will have more rooms and will never get out of there!I worked out today as we had 10 rooms each, we will get paid from 9 til 12.20pm, yet we didn't get out of there til gone 2! And thats with no breaks. Ive done this job before for another company and you got paid for how many hours you worked, not per room. Its minimum wage as it is!I am going to tell her I can only work 4 days a week now, just so I dont go over 16 hours! before I sign this contract she's given me. But even then I know that the forth day I am basically going to be working for nothing because atleast an hour n half a day we dont get paid for. So in fact it works out less than minimum wage per hour! which is 5.73. Is this legal???Its impossible to do each room in 20 minutes, and I am fast! They only supply one lot of cleaning stuff, and we have to keep running down corridors to get stuff off each other.Do you think if she is desperate enough for staff that she will go for me dropping days? I only want to do that til I get something else anyway. Otherwise I will have to go back on income support which ive just come off of! It could get messy. My children are 11 and 13 and would quite like to see me weekends, but she has me working saturday and sunday til probably 3 next week because it will only be me there. I thought it would be about mid day like when I did it at another hotel. When it said 15-20 per week, finishing mid day made sense!I just feel like crying at the moment. Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (20 October 2008): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThanks i rang that number and they offered to look into it, because apparently you have to be able to achieve the minimum wage and as its impossible to clean hotel rooms within 20 minutes including loading trolleys, sharing cleaning equipment etc, this job isn't making it possible to achieve. I am going to see the manager today and going to try and work something out, I am going to say i cant do sundays. But even then i worked out i will have to work 25 hours (5days) to earn 16 hours worth of wages. But until i get another job i will have to do it. I dont want to go back on income support now.Once ive found another job, i will ring min wage back and give them details, because people shouldn't have to work under those conditions. If you work 25 hours, you should be paid 25 hours.
A
female
reader, Emilysanswers +, writes (19 October 2008):
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Dl1/Directories/DG_10010999
This page gives you all the details of the national minimum wage helpline. From what I can see, your employer is acting illegally. Phone them up and check what they say. If they find out that your employer is breaking the law then they will come down on them like a tonne of bricks so give them a ring and report it.
Even if you do have to quit and get another job, at least you will know that they are getting punished, and you can always tip the local press off about it as well.
Good Luck!! xx
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A
male
reader, Dr Vendetta +, writes (19 October 2008):
 simple answer. find another job.
namely in cleaning... but not hotels. try offices and industerial units.
once you move from the shady world of hotels to offices you enter into a different world of contracts and officals. a friend started a business up last year, was just her to start with. she went round cleaned the offices, hoovered, wiped surfaces down. windows, toilets.. you know cleaning duties.she also did show homes too.
when i spoke to her a couple of months back ( around a year since starting )
she had 12 people working under her and was approached by another ladywho had started a simular business but was paying people full time.. so if there was no work she was loosing money..idiot.
anyhow point of it is, this lady wanted more contracts and offered to buy the business from her take on her 12 people and the contracts.
long story short. 1 year = £80,000.00 for one sold business venture.
not bad for a years work. she went on to do other things since then but.. theres money in office cleaning.
look into it and move on from this place you're at now.
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