{"id":644,"date":"2014-08-11T09:00:55","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T08:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=644"},"modified":"2014-08-11T15:03:50","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T14:03:50","slug":"slave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=644","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI was a slave\u00e2\u20ac\u0165"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The gap between the minimum wage, \u00c2\u01416.41, and the living wage (\u00c2\u01418.80 in London and \u00c2\u01417.65 elsewhere), may seem small.
\nBut for the lowest paid and hardest working among us, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the difference between living and barely surviving.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Gonzalo Redondo, a Spanish migrant worker, spent two years working at an Edinburgh hotel. He was paid \u00c2\u01416.18 an hour\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe national minimum wage at the time\u00e2\u20ac\u201dto clean 32 rooms a day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf you didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t finish cleaning all the rooms, you couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go home,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Redondo explains. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bDo you know what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like cleaning that many rooms? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impossible. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a constant marathon. I was a slave.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSome rooms are check outs and some rooms are stay overs. Check outs take forever, since you have to clean everything really well. Sometimes, you enter a room, and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vomit everywhere.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Redondo struggled to get by on his wages. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bYou pay your bills, you buy food for the month and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re left with maybe \u00c2\u014140,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIf you have an emergency expense, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re screwed.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Redondo bitterly recalls management\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s condescending treatment of its workers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey try to make you feel good about your job in silly ways. For example, every month, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have a meeting, and the management would give a bottle of champagne to the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098housekeeper of the month.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 What good is a bottle of champagne when I hardly have enough money to eat? They called it an award but it felt like a slap in the face.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What about his personal life? Redondo laughs. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bI had no personal life. My entire life was the hotel. You make friends in the hotel, and they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re your only friends. When I was a spa attendant, some days I would finish at 11 at night, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to return at five in the morning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIn my 34 years of existence, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the worst job I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had in my life. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never been under so much constant stress. To be honest, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probably the reason my relationship ended. I just didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have the time. I was always, always working.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165
\nRedondo sighs.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe were supposed to get married and have children.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, Redondo lives in London and gets paid above the London Living Wage as a gardener.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s made an incredible difference,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he says. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bObviously I still can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afford many things, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m finally living a life I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m proud of.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The gap between the minimum wage, \u00c2\u01416.41, and the living wage (\u00c2\u01418.80 in London and \u00c2\u01417.65 elsewhere), may seem small. But for the lowest paid and hardest working among us, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the difference between living and barely surviving.   Gonzalo Redondo, a Spanish migrant worker, spent two years working at an Edinburgh hotel. He was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[23],"wps_subtitle":"Former hotel housekeeper tells all","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":646,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644\/revisions\/646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}