Anyway, they were doing a great job, and at some stage I asked them how much they got paid by their company. The answer was $10/hour. Now I paid the company $35/hour/person.
When I was in Cozumel over the winter, I stayed at the Cozumel Palace, a swanky all-inclusive that cost me $2300/week (it was my first "real" vacation since coming back from Iraq, so I did it up right.. ;)
Anyway, there was an attendant who came to clean my room and we started to chat in Spanish (I needed the practice).. Well, I asked him how much he makes per hour working there and he told me $5 PER DAY. Turned out, when I asked the bartender the same thing, he was being paid $10 PER DAY..
So here are these folks working at a VERY NICE hotel in a plush Mexican resort town being paid SQUAT for the hard work they were doing.
Ok.. so I ask myself, is this the case with just low-skilled hotel labor, or is it more wide-spread? Well, I happened to be down at the Cozumel Hard Rock Cafe', because I was just simply craving a good American style burger. The burger was about $9 and the two monster Margaritas I washed it down with were $8 each. And I got to chatting with one of the cute waitresses about what she was paid per hour and she responded $4 PER DAY (not counting tips).
So I mentioned that I had just paid nearly $30 for lunch and that was nearly 8x what her daily wage!!! I have to admit that I felt VERY embarrassed at that point, and she did receive a very nice tip from me.
So think about it.. $10/hour for these Mexican laborers is a FORTUNE to them. And if they can find a relatively inexpensive place to live, with multiple residents sharing the rent/mortgage, every $5 they send back home equates to a day's wages there.
Hawk |
