Are you making any upcoming travel plans?  If so, don’t just stay in hotels—stay justly.

Just Journeys is a new initiative in support of America's hotel workers, among the most disenfranchised U.S. workers today.  Sign the Pledge to support fair hotel working conditions!

Clean, soft towels.  Neatly tucked bedspreads. Freshly fluffed pillows. We all love the little touches when we stay at hotels.  But it’s harder to enjoy your hotel stay when you find out what’s going on behind the scenes.

•    The hotel housekeeper who cleans your room probably takes pain medication to get through the day.  The rate of injuries for hotel housekeepers is more than double the injury rate for service sector workers as a whole.  Two-thirds of housekeepers report taking pain medication to get through their work day. 

•    The housekeeper who cleans your room may not be getting paid for all of her work.  Hotel housekeepers must rush to meet a daily quota of cleaned rooms.  As a result, they frequently skip rest periods and meals in order to finish, and even work off the clock to meet their quotas.

•    The housekeeper who cleans your room is probably an immigrant woman or a woman of color who is struggling to support her family on her earnings.  More than 90% of hotel housekeepers are women, and these jobs tend to pay less and are more dangerous than the hotel jobs predominantly filled by men.

•    Your hotel housekeepers’ hard work still probably doesn’t make ends meet.  Hotel housekeepers frequently earn as little as $8.50/hour and rarely receive health insurance.

That’s why Progressive Jewish Alliance, Jewish Funds for Justice, and the National Jewish Labor Committee urge you to sign an electronic pledge to become a “kosher” (ethical) traveler--committing yourself to treating hotel staff with dignity by taking several specific yet simple steps to improve their working conditions and protect their health.  To learn more and sign the Just Journeys pledge, click here.

Individually, we can make a difference for another person.  Together, we can change an industry.

The Just Journeys campaign is part of PJA’s work to expand the Jewish notion of what is “kosher,” what is acceptable for consumption in the eyes of Jewish ethical and historical tradition, to include the way in which human beings treat one another.  We believe that working conditions and compensation should be a critical component of our decisions in the marketplace.  Join us by making and honoring this commitment when visiting family and friends, staying at a hotel for business, or celebrating a life-cycle ceremony at a hotel.  

Don’t stop at signing the pledge! 

Want to get more involved in this important work?  Join one of our Economic Justice Working Groups, PJA’s core groups of leaders who are making a difference in the pursuit of economic justice.  Click here to learn more about how you can get involved.

Our ability to make change in the hotel industry is not limited to us as individuals.  If you volunteer or work for an organization that frequently patronizes hotels for banquets, conferences, or meetings, your organizations can also “do the right thing.”  Learn more about how your organization can make ethical choices by enrolling in the Informed Meetings Exchange (INMEX) www.inmex.org.  Join other organizations like the Union for Reform Judaism (URJ), United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism (USCJ), and Mazon: The Jewish Response to Hunger by taking a stand today.