What if today I tell you the story of Las Kellys?
If you like going on vacation to a hotel and having a room as clean as it can be, I think you should read the following post.
I found out their story a few days ago. It made me think.
Would you like to keep reading?
Last week, while I was attending a training course of the University I belong to (University of Deusto), I saw that the E.P. are in more places that I imagined. While one of the speakers was talking about justice, he mentioned an example of people with that spirit we need to have in order to be an entrepreneur person. The example I bring you today is that of those people, in this case, working women who each day they work to contribute to our wellbeing even though, in many occasions, they put their own at risk. I’m referring to Las Kellys.
Las Kellys, which comes from “those who clean”, is a Spanish association of maid services, specifically hotel maids, who on the 11th of October in 2016 decided to go officially to Barcelona after many starts and stops and a lot of work.
In 2014, they started the fight for their employment situation in the simplest way we can imagine: by word of mouth as the flag and with the support and solidarity as the banner. That’s how the first groups of maids with a common purpose started. In 2015, internet became their new ally (today they have more than 15.000 followers just on their website) and the self-organization in their new way of working. They then created different territorial groups in different tourist destinations of reference in Spain. Today, they we can find them in eight territories:
Finally, in 2016, the Las Kellys Association was formed.
The association wants to make visible the problems workers of this industry have. For that, they have decided to claim their rights pushing the administrations, employer organizations and the trade union centers. Their goal is to solve the problems and improve the working conditions with the purpose of improving the quality of life, which EVERYONE deserves.
Why do I bring you this example of E.P. to the blog today? I think that, at this point, you already know why. So, just in case, I’ll tell you: because I think these women are the example of what an E.P. needs, among others, compromise, willpower (apart from physical strength), consistence, courage, perseverance, proactivity, management and organization skills and ATTITUDE, a lot of attitude.
I encourage you to read their manifest to know a little more about them and to, if you want, watch the program that Equipo de Investigación produced about them (all of which is in Spanish).
http://www.einvestigacion.com/Las-Kellys.php
This post is dedicated to them and their recognition, because as I one of Las kellys said once, I hope that after reading this post you appreciate more their work, you are aware of the conditions in which many of them are working and you pay more attention to the way you leave your room of the hotel.
Thank you for still being there.
Enjoy the week.
Translated by María Ubierna Quintanilla and supervised by Arantza Arruti.