How long have you worked at the Waldorf Astoria?
Nineteen years, right after coming out of high school. When I started I thought ‘this is hard work!’ The bathrooms are still hard to do, because I pay attention to detail. I don’t like to see hair on the floor, and I like to see brass shining. Every room that I clean up here in the older suites has the brass. To shine it, we use Bright Boy, you put it on the rag, put it on the pipe, and rinse it off really well.

What do you do well?
I love the bed to be tight. To me it looks inviting, if everything’s neat and perfect with the little folds.

How are the guests?
The guests are pretty cool. Every once in a while you get a difficult one who may be upset cause you didn’t get to the room on time. I can’t take the nasty guest who comes for one day and makes a mess. These mini suites cost $450 a night, and it’s as if they feel like they’re paying all this money to say, “Clean it!” And then they don’t even tip.

What’s a good tip to leave?
Two or three dollars a day, if they’re staying for a while.  But even if a person leaves a dollar, at least you know they thought about you. You take a cab and go two blocks, you give a dollar to the driver. I see people’s most intimate stuff – they should tip.

What else can people do that helps room attendants?
They can put the towels in one spot. Put garbage in the can – if you leave it all over it gets confusing because it’s hard to tell what’s trash and what isn’t. Put your clothes on a chair, because when you leave them in the bed they can tangled up in the sheets. I’m paid to clean up, that’s my job, but those little things help.

Why did you get involved in Local 6’s negotiating committee?
I wanted to get a good contract. Until you go to these negotiations, you don’t see what management says or what’s going on. You see how management thinks about you and go “wow.” It’s like they don’t respect us, especially in housekeeping.

They’re constantly trying to add amenities to the room, like robes. But that requires a lot of back and forth between the floors to pick them up, which takes extra time. We said we wanted to get paid extra if they did that. Any time housekeeping asks for money, the general manager says there is none, because we’re not a revenue department. We tell them, ‘Don’t keep adding stuff for us to do and not expect to pay us for that extra work.’ For instance, see these books? (There are five arranged on the coffee table). At first they said, we want to add a book to the room, and we said okay. Now it’s up to five books on the coffee table and four in the drawer.

How many rooms do you clean a day?
We clean 12 a day.

Talk about the contract you won this fall.
We don’t pay for medical –that was a big victory. They wanted us to pay a certain percentage. Now that I’m a delegate, I know that the union helps you know your rights and management can’t take them away.