Too precarious to be inclusive? Hotel maid employment in Spain

ABSTRACT

Hoteliers have steadily been able to reduce costs and increase employees’ workload as a result of mass unemployment sparked by the financial crisis, beginning in 2008, and associated legislative reforms by the Spanish government. Outsourcing has been hotels’ main instrument in this drive. Hotel chambermaids are among the groups most affected by this phenomenon. This article analyses the impacts of outsourcing on hotel maids’ working conditions, while questioning the possibilities for achieving inclusive tourism given the current outsourcing trend. It is based on 44 in-depth interviews with a range of informants, including 24 hotel maids who have experienced the process of outsourcing, in major Spanish tourism destinations. This study aims to understand the changes these workers have experienced and perceived in their working conditions. The research results highlight a marked deterioration in hotel maids’ working conditions in recent years, most notably involving (a) a reduction in their salary and the loss of professional categories, (b) work overload, (c) greater uncertainty in the duration of employment, timetables and work schedule, (d) de-professionalisation, (e) segmentation, division and an increase in competition between hotel staff, (f) the accentuation of health problems and (g) a decrease in the capacity of representation and the defence of workers’ collective interests.     

Reviews

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Nineteenth-century statecraft and the politics of moderation in the Franco-Prussian War

In the nineteenth century there was a distinct form of moderation in European statecraft. This moderation worked within the broader the framework of the European concert where the exercise of prudence and forbearance acted as the measure of state conduct in European politics. The overarching intention behind moderation was to maintain a balanced, peaceful Europe. Using the context of the Franco-Prussian War, this study attempts to highlight the place of moderation in diplomacy, as contemporaries understood it. In doing so, it provides an enriched perspective of nineteenth-century statecraft.     

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti: the Futurist as Fascist, 1929–37

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the leader of Futurism, is no stranger to scholarly inquiry, and the centenary of 2009 only magnified this attention. However, what is often avoided, downplayed, or misunderstood are Marinetti's politics, and specifically his connection to the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini. In this article Ialongo investigates just what this connection was, and concludes that Marinetti was exactly what Mussolini called him, a ‘fervent Fascist’, and not simply an opportunistic fellow-traveller, as many have argued. By putting the Futurist initiatives of the 1930s, such as Aeropittura, Arte sacra futurista, Cucina futurista and Naturismo into a broad political perspective, Ialongo demonstrates that each of these initiatives were all geared towards furthering Marinetti and Mussolini's twin goals of strength at home as a springboard for imperial expansion abroad, culminating in the conquest of Ethiopia in 1936. Ialongo argues that the political goals of each of these initiatives were evidence of Marinetti's ‘working towards the Duce’ in the 1930s.