No vacancy? It’s too expensive to clean hotel rooms on Sundays
Most hotels cannot afford to clean their rooms or change bedsheets on a Sunday because of the excessive cost of penalty rates, in a growing trend that is leading to customers being turned away.
The Accommodation Association of Australia has urged the government to display greater leadership by fostering a mature debate on penalty rates and encouraged it to make a submission to the industrial umpire’s review of modern awards to buttress the case for change.
The association’s chief executive, Richard Munro, warned yesterday that the practice of holding over rooms for cleaning and maintenance until Monday morning had increased markedly in recent years and was now widespread across both large and small operators.
He said the trend meant customers were being turned away as a result of 11th-hour developments such as flight delays, with rooms too messy to be used.
“The fact is, we are busiest Monday to Friday, and so we have to get the rooms ready,” Mr Munro said. “But obviously labour costs are better on Monday to Friday than they are on Sunday. So essentially what we do is what’s called ‘hold over’ rooms. Holding over rooms means not cleaning them essentially on a Sunday.
“When I say not clean, we make sure there’s no perishables ... But as far as making beds, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, all those sorts of things, we leave them over to the Monday morning.”
“This practice has become more widespread ... It would be greater than 50 per cent. It has become more apparent with costs increasing every year, with minimum wages going up to the rates they are.”
Jerry Schwartz, Australia’s biggest private owner of hotels in Melbourne, Sydney and the NSW Hunter Valley, confirmed he cut back on cleaning services on Sundays to save on costs. “We reduce cleaning on Sundays depending on occupancies,” Dr Schwartz said. “If the hotel is full, we obviously have to clean the rooms. But we tend to clean on a Monday if we don’t have to have the rooms clean for a Sunday.”
Dr Schwartz said he used cleaners on Mondays because they cost at least double on Sundays. “It’s the same job done one day later and it costs half as much.”
The accommodation association’s push increases pressure on Employment Minister Michaelia Cash to take action on penalty rates after she indicated her preference not to make a government submission to the Fair Work Commission’s review of awards.
Bob East, the chief executive of Mantra, Australia’s second largest hotel group, said hoteliers would not use cleaners on Sundays if they didn’t have to.
“If we don’t need to clean your room on a Sunday night, we will get the cleaners in on Monday,” Mr East said. “This is because of penalty rates.”
The hospitality industry (general) award sets penalty rates at 175 per cent on Sundays for full, part-time and casual employees, meaning a level 2 room attendant receives $32.32 an hour, with the base rate Monday to Friday set at $18.47.
The accommodation association proposes that full-time, part-time and casual employees should receive a 150 per cent penalty on Sundays, reducing the hourly rate to $27.71. It argues that Saturday rates should remain unchanged at 125 per cent for full and part-time employees and 150 per cent for casuals.
The hospitality industry (general) award sets penalty rates at 250 per cent on public holidays and casuals receive a rate of 275 per cent or $50.79 an hour. The association is pushing for a 100 per cent reduction in the casual rate to $32.32 an hour.
In Melbourne, David Perry, chief executive of The Windsor Hotel, said he insisted on employing his own cleaners rather than outsourcing the work.
“We believe we need to keep the hotel clean 365 days a year,” the veteran hotelier said. “We roster cleaning staff on seven days a week.”
Mr Munro warned there were other knock-on effects arising from penalty rates, with hotel breakfast services being cancelled on Sunday mornings and important maintenance works often being deferred until Mondays.
Smaller operators in regional areas have been the hardest hit, with Mr Munro saying it was often a “line ball” call as to whether it was more economical to clean the rooms and make them available.
“Regional hotels in particular, they have pretty flat rates,” he said. “You see in some of the bigger city hotels, their rates are highly variable, similar to the airlines, whereas motels in regional areas, they are pretty flat.
“So when it comes to a Sunday, they would probably, a lot of them would just close ... Sunday has become a sort of black day for our industry. You really just can’t afford to run anything anymore.”
Source: The Australian, Joe Kelly and Lisa Allen, 6th November 2015
Originally published as: No vacancy? It’s too expensive to clean hotel rooms on Sundays
