As many people are suffering through a faltering economy and a weak job market, a group of local women are finding strength. It’s in their numbers.
Relying on their tough spirits and solid work ethics, 10 Asheville Latinas have formed the Home Cleaning Professionals, finding that it is safer — and smarter — to pool their resources than to go it alone.
Andrea Arias Soto, who works for the Asheville nonprofit Center for Participatory Change, which helps people across Western North Carolina work together and transform their communities, was one of the driving forces behind the cleaning cooperative. Working with Nuestro Centro, a center for the Hispanic Community in West Asheville, she noticed more and more Hispanic women trying to find work, and finding it more difficult.
She and a Nuestro Centro staff member, Andrea Golden, came up with an idea to combine the women’s skills to make them stronger.
“We thought it might be easier to find work as a group,” said Arias Soto, who now serves as the cleaning cooperative’s manager. “Our goal is to have the women be empowered economically and to find living wage jobs, which they deserve.”
Arias said that the average hotel pays maids per room, but it takes a fast housecleaner about 40 minutes to clean a room, making the pay less than the minimum wage of $6.55.
“We want to be able to help them access better wages,” Arias Soto said. Read full article here…
