Saphia Doumenc^[1]

Cleaning is one of the most tiring sectors of activity. Among other things, there is an over-representation of musculoskeletal disorders^[2] (MSDs) as well as an accident frequency rate that is much higher than the national average (37.5 compared with 25.7). It is also a sector marked by a particularly high rate of absenteeism linked to its arduousness.

To add to the harshness of the activity, female employees^[3] remain relatively invisible to society. These workers are subjected to true ‘economic violence’ (Maruani and Puech, 2006): a sector mainly composed of women (66%^[4]), 75% of its employment contracts are part-time^[5], generally signed for want of anything better. Situated on the fringes of subcontracting, they carry out their work at hours that are out of step with the rhythms shared by the rest of the workers. This invisibility produces social disqualification and spatial relegation. Furthermore, the obligation to work on weekends, which is present in most contracts, disrupts the balance of family life. Indeed, working in cleaning forces women to learn to juggle with different social times. When they have a couple, women can sometimes rely on their partner’s salary, or even on their availability to take care of the household. However, as domestic tasks are still very unevenly distributed, many female employees actually work a double shift^[6]. Thus, in the event of a marital break-up, women are more heavily impacted in material terms: ‘the loss of standard of living directly attributable to the break-up is around 20% for women and 3% for men’.^[7]. Professional insecurity is therefore reflected in marital or sentimental insecurity.

Working in the cleaning sector exposes people to many disadvantages: physical and psychological pain and social relegation are compounded by economic vulnerability. Nevertheless, being part of this workforce requires true personal sacrifices, particularly in terms of availability –staggered hours– and mobility –distant workplaces. Unsurprisingly, this profession is affected by social unrest, reflected in a high rate of work-related accidents, absenteeism and depression. However, these indicators are not sufficient to describe the reality of the sector. Indeed, on their own, they only allow us to observe a small part of this workforce. But what about those who, in spite of all, keep working?

Although the indicator of work accident rates is useful for understanding the risks at work, it does not give a complete picture of working conditions. On the one hand, not all accidents are reported. On the other hand, it seems to be of little help in thinking about the arduousness of work since it ignores those who, despite accidents, stoppages or depression, continue to work as best they can. In a note published in 2012, the National Agency for the Improvement of Working Conditions (ANACT) invites us to observe the off-work life conditions to identify and better inform health indicators: ‘the analysis of health indicators (absenteeism, stress, etc.) must also be carried out with regard to the family structure (family composition, dependents, major income, distribution of tasks, etc.) in order to take into account the accumulation of off-work constraints’^[8].

This attention is all the more necessary when studying a predominantly female population, since it is more constrained by off-work weight. This is why, for several decades now, many studies have emphasised the need to introduce a gender dimension into the study of industrial relations and, in particular, into the understanding of working conditions. Some data are particularly striking: over the 2000-2010 period, for example, work-related accident rates decreased, but very unevenly between the sexes. Indeed, work-related accidents for men fell by 21.3%, while they rose by more than 23% for women^[9]. However, in addition to a gender dimension, the breakdown by sector is also illuminating. Women are mainly part of the CTN I^[10], namely, the committee concerned with temporary work and activities related to social action, health and cleaning. For all these reasons, investigating cleaning women requires an intersectional analysis.

From this perspective, this article seeks to examine how female cleaning workers are caught in various relations of domination in terms of class, race, and gender (Crenshaw, 2005). Such an approach requires contextualising, situating, and identifying situations of domination as well as situations of circumvention, adaptation or resistance put forward by this population. For these women are not only workers: they are also wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, members of a religious and/or cultural community, etc. Since these women cannot afford to resign (Barnier, 2011), they are forced to manage pathogenic working conditions as best they can, while continuing to intervene (or not) in the various social times for which they are responsible. Indeed, when studying a feminised sector, it is important to pay particular attention to how these women workers organise themselves to manage the plurality of institutional times: work, family, childcare, etc. In order to grasp the interweaving of work and non-work, since the 1980s, sociology has worked particularly hard to make room for the idea of an articulation of the spheres of production and reproduction (Barrère-Maurisson, 1984).

Some institutional indicators address occupational accidents and diseases, recognising the victim’s rights and offering a certain form of ‘justice’. But what happens when these accidents or illnesses are not recognised –or even kept silent? In this case, how can we account for the majority of cases of employees who continue to work despite the hardship and constraints of the sector?

This article is based on the fieldwork I did for my doctoral research^[11] on the genesis of political and trade union involvement in a population that is subject to different forms of domination. This investigation was carried out among working women (and, in a lesser proportion, men) who, in their professional trajectories, had the possibility to participate in a trade union. For this purpose, an ethnographic approach was favoured and fieldwork was conducted in two cities: Marseille and Lyon. I was first hired for six months as a ‘development officer’ in a Lyon-based union dedicated to the defence of female employees in the cleaning sector (CNT-Solidarité Ouvrière). This immersion allowed me to carry out a participant observation and to glean as much information as possible about union and wage configuration. In Marseille, between March 2017 and July 2018, I conducted nine intensive fieldwork sessions. The method is therefore based on several research materials: multi-site observation of employees in various situations (strikes, labour lawsuits, demonstrations, negotiations with employers, etc.) and on repeated interviews over time^[12].

The paper is based on three significant cases that raise questions about the various ways in which work is experienced. In fact, a number of organisms allow these employees to obtain recognition for the hardship of their work and even to acquire material benefits (either on medical or legal advice —via labour courts— or through politics, by resorting to militant strikes). Considering the structure of this branch of activity and the form of work itself, ‘off-work life’ becomes the privileged place for understanding, empathising, and sharing the difficulties caused by this type of professional activities. Women who work in spite of everything are not ‘superhuman’: if they ‘hold on’, it is because they mobilise social resources outside (Thibault, 2013) or alongside (Weber, 1989) work, enabling them to manage delicate situations more or less satisfactorily.

1. Working to curb precariousness

Working in the cleaning sector at hotels or for private contractors involves a great deal of inconvenience. Subcontracting, by its very nature, makes the workforce highly available to the client. The cleaning company that employs the employees puts them at the disposal of its client. Since they are not part of the working community on the site where they perform their tasks, the isolation of the chambermaid is an important element of her daily work. This isolation is somewhat mitigated in the case of the hotel industry –particularly concerning hotels with a significant number of rooms^[13]–, but some establishments do not hide their desire to ‘distance’ themselves from the ‘cleaning’ staff.

As mentioned above, performing this work generates a true invisibility in the eyes of society. On the one hand, these workers work very early in the morning or, on the contrary, very late. On the other hand, when they work –as is the case in the hotel industry– at traditional times (i.e., during the day), they are asked to use service entrances so that customers do not have to pass by them^[14].

Laila: an emergency situation

Laila’s story shows us straightforwardly how this invisibilisation can be experienced in a rather violent symbolic way. Of Moroccan origin, she left her country in 2003 at the age of 20 to follow her brother, who had gone to study in Germany. She stayed there for three years and found a job as a chambermaid in a luxury hotel. Then, Laila met her future husband, also of Moroccan origin, who had French nationality. She agreed to follow him to France, where they got married. Before obtaining a residence permit, Laila had to prove to the Prefecture more than three years’ presence on French territory.This marked the beginning of three very difficult years:

He made me miserable because I had no papers. He decided everything. I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t go out. He said to me ‘No, you can’t go out’, sometimes for a long time, several weeks. Before marrying him, I hadn’t seen that he was an alcoholic. It’s terrible. He made me miserable. He really did.

Laila’s husband is violent, both physically and psychologically. He puts pressure on her about the papers she still does not have. He cheats on her and has children with another woman. During these three transitional years, Laila became pregnant with her daughter (in 2007) and then with her son (in 2008). The rent contract is signed in her husband’s name. She asks for a divorce; he finally agrees. Laila cannot afford to move out on her own and prefers to live with him during the (scarce) time he spends home rather than tighten her belt (even more). In 2010, she got a job as a cleaning employee in a ‘budget’ hotel in downtown Marseille. With her 88 hours a month, she never gets more than 800 euros. During a first interview at her home in March 2017, Laila was still living with her ‘ex’. She suffers from this cohabitation and is still unable to save as much money as she expected.

On the situation of cleaning employees in the hotel, Laila refers:

[Cleaning companies] are cheaper because they don’t pay the maids for overtime, meals, nothing. But who’s taking care of all that? Chambermaids, the victims are the cleaneing women. And even the hotel treats us like slaves, because sometimes… For example, once I saw a woman who had a lot of work to do. She was thirsty, but she couldn’t drink from the tap water. She went down to the reception, where breakfast is served, and she asked the manager ‘Please, can I drink a glass of water from the machine there?’ and she said ‘No! I can’t open the machine for a glass of water’. So, the woman started to cry… This is not OK… We aren’t well, we are the worst treated. We are the worst, the least… We aren’t allowed to go downstairs [to the reception]. We’re not allowed to have coffee, or breakfast, it’s forbidden.

Q: And the others, for instance, are they allowed at the reception and that?

Yes. We can. I don’t go down, that’s the truth. I can’t. I bring whatever I want to drink from home. I don’t want anyone to look at me sideways. I can’t. It feels terrible. Afterwards, I go home and think about it a lot.

Q: And you are not allowed to?

Yes, we can. But the way others look at us. They give you an awful look. You see, if you want to have a glass of water, you go downstairs, you take a glass and they do like this [she imitates an up-and-down look]. And the next day they say ‘No, don’t come down, don’t come to breakfast, no’. They throw everything away! They throw away the croissants, the pains au chocolat, everything! But why don’t they give it to the girls? The poor, some of them have nothing to eat! And they throw away the croissants, the pains au chocolat… How can it be!?! Seriously! It breaks my heart, wallah! I think, ‘What the hell is this?’ You throw away croissants, pains au chocolat, yoghurts, cheeses, everything! Give them to the maids! (Laila, interview on 14 March 2017).

Although Laila experiences this marginalisation and even class contempt –racialised moreover– relatively badly, she seems to find, with the union, a source of compensation. Indeed, in July 2016, Laila and her colleagues began a strike supported by the CNT-SO. With slogans such as ‘cleaning women on strike’ or ‘To scrub, scrub, you have to pay’ and in front of the hotel, the employees reclaimed for a time the space that is usually denied to them. Exercising the strike before the cleaning company could be considered a kind of ‘revenge’ for their perpetual exclusion. In an interview, Laila recalls that, after the strike, she felt that the hotel staff and the housekeeper began paying more attention to the cleaning women. But while this struggle for recognition is important, especially for morale, it does not take away the physical hardship of the work.

Those who ‘hold on’ do so not by choice but by necessity. They take it upon and commit themselves despite the many difficulties they face. Laila ‘sacrifices’ herself for her children: she said so several times in the various interviews she has had with me. When I asked if she takes some free time, she replied that there is no room for that in her life:

The children, the house, how can you do it? Preparing food… It’s too hard. Just with the work, you’re out late… Because it’s not easy, working as a chambermaid. It’s… It hurts everywhere. Even when you’re off work, your day off, you don’t want to do anything. But you have to go home, do the cleaning, the washing, prepare the food, the children, shower them, this and that, etc. You don’t rest. You never rest. Not even on your day off, you don’t rest. My ex helps me. I don’t want to lie, he helps me. But it’s the woman who does almost everything. It’s her, she does it. Life is too hard. Life in France… (Laila, interview on 14 March 2017)

As can be seen in this interview extract, the woman’s obligation to be a ‘good’ mother and head of the household is an additional burden in terms of time and mental load. Laila adds, however, that she can count on the help – albeit minimal– of her ex-husband. But things are not fixed in time, and daily life is destabilised when one of the resources essential to her balance is shattered. These circumstances occur during crises, whether it is a period of unemployment, a separation, etc. Thus, when Laila’s ex-husband orders her to leave the flat, her entire survival strategy is undermined. In an emergency, she and her two children are forced to move in with her boyfriend, whom she has just met. This new relationship, immediately put to the test by an unfortunate experience, only survives for a short time and, within a few weeks, Laila finds herself on the street with her ten- and eleven-year–old children. At first, a friend takes them in, but announces from the outset that this situation can only be short-lived. Laila and her children found shelter with this friend for three months and then obtained a place in a refuge: single women with children are often given priority^[15]. This chaotic period in Laila’s life coincides with her unavailability for a third interview^[16]. Constrained by the urgency of her situation, Laila no longer goes to the union either. After all, the trade union only appears to be a resource for those who are at least settled. In cases of extreme disqualification, the union is no longer the most important resource. A few months later, Laila experiences an accident at work: the vacuum cleaner plug (an old model) caught fire when she plugged it in. This incident does not warrant a leave. Laila is nevertheless taken to hospital, since the fire brigade wants to make sure that she has not inhaled any smoke. In the end, although Laila remains in shock for several days, there is no physical damage recorded. Laila returns to the union to make sure that everything has gone according to law. But her use of the union at this point is very much an individual one, like any other social service. Pressured from all sides, Laila is abandons the collective and claiming dimension of the union.

Indeed, using the trade union as a tool for struggle, or collective struggle, requires being already ‘settled’ in a situation. Laila’s case is heuristic insofar as it validates the fact that, in the absence of stability in the private sphere, commitment to and through work is not (or ceases to be) a priority. There are reasons beyond the professional sphere that lead to union membership. And sometimes the union appears to be a means of obtaining both symbolic recognition for the hardships of a job and new material rights.

2. Working in resistance: the recourse to trade unionism

In 2007, the French National Institute for Research and Safety (INRS) for the Prevention of Work-Related Accidents and Illnesses^[17] published a scientific and technical document entitled ‘Subcontracting and accidents’ which provides an overview of the repercussions of this economic practice (Grusenmeyer, 2007). By establishing a triangular working relationship between an employer, a contracting company, and an employee, subcontracting always cuts into the working conditions of employees. On the one hand, it establishes a double subordination for workers who have to respond to the orders of both the company that hires them and its client. On the other hand, since the desire to reduce costs for certain services is at the heart of this regime, the specialised companies engage in a genuine price competition, which necessarily leads to an intensification of work for unchanged wages (Algava and Amira, 2011).

In hotels, the cleaning activity is often subcontracted to specialised companies. Under this configuration, it is not uncommon to see the Labour Code circumvented or even breached. Overwork is far from being an exception; most hotel cleaning women’s contracts with hotels are for 5 hours a day – equivalent to 108 hours a month and an average salary of 1,000 euros. However, many women work more hours than specified in their contracts. Cleaning companies do not usually pay overtime, considering that a room should be cleaned in 15-20 minutes. Employees are asked to clean a certain number of rooms each day, without taking into account how dirty they are. Thus, not wishing to spend their day at work while their salary remains the same, the cleaning women hurry every day to avoid finishing (again) too late, especially when they have family commitments. When a team of women working under such conditions decides to go to the CNT-SO lawyers, such cases are ‘easily’ negotiated by the union.

Niora: ‘hold on’ or even resist

To briefly illustrate a case of mobilisation, the story of Niora is particularly heuristic. Born in 1980 in the Comoros to a father who worked at the prefecture and a homemaker mother, Niora first immigrated alone to Mayotte at the age of 21 for economic reasons. After the death of her father, she quickly found herself obliged, as the eldest child, to help her relatives financially. In Mayotte, she met her ex-husband, with whom she had two children. Niora also had her first paid work experience, working in school canteens. Because her ex-husband has French nationality, the family manages to move to Marseille without too much difficulty. In 2015, only one year after their arrival, the father of the family met another woman and abandoned them. Niora is forced to look for a job and, thanks to the support of her cousin, quickly finds a position in the hotel business. Niora has been employed at the Easy House hotel^[18] since early 2016. A few months after she was hired, in September 2016, she embarked on her first strike with the support of her colleagues and the CNT-SO union. In an interview, Niora looks back at the reasons for that 15-day conflict:

It was due to the pay, because they paid per room and not per hour. We went in at 9:30 am, sometimes we left at 5:30-6 pm for 600 or 700 euros a month.

Q: And how much do you work? Every day?

Yes, yes, every day, with two days off a week, or otherwise every day. And so we asked and they refused. They refused to pay by hour. […] Then, they don’t pay for overtime either. There was no payment by hour, there was no payment for overtime, there was nothing. […] We said to the boss that we wanted hourly pay, food expenses, the thirteenth month, and he said ‘No, I can’t give you that’.

Q: And that’s when you decided to go on strike.

Yes, yes. […] It was a colleague who told us about Anouck and the union and we went to see Anouck. It seems that a friend of hers had told her. We went to see her and we met everyone. Because we had already gone on a small strike before.

Q: Really?

Yes, yes! Between us but without a union! […] It was in July. We had a short one-day strike. And I was the leader of the strike and the boss sent me a letter home saying that he would fire me because of it. […] And then Anouck said: ‘If you are ready, we will help you to go on strike’. We agreed! And then she asked ‘Are you sure?’ and we said ‘Yes, yes!’ We agreed! […] And that was no small thing, because we did go on strike! But now there’s always trouble going on with the other company, eh! It’s still a mess. We’ve had, what… two quiet months, but since January until now, it’s been crappy. Because we have an unspecified contract for four hours a day, and in general, with those contracts, the employer is obliged to pay for those hours even if there is no work, isn’t that right?

Q: Yes…

But they don’t!

Q: Okay, so when you do less than four hours you get paid less?

Yes, and here I have the messages she [the boss] sent me. But I also sent her messages. I told her ‘This is not OK! Because my contract is for four hours a day plus the food expenses!

Q: Because how much do you get normally?

That’s 680 euros net plus food expenses plus Sundays, which are paid extra, but no longer!

Q: So they’re doing that again…

[…] Look at the message she [cleaning company’s chief] sent me because, frankly, it’s too much. This is me: ‘I want to talk about my salary, it’s not OK’. And then she replied and said: ‘The salary is equal to what you have done. February is a quiet month, and you arrived late’. Yes, it’s true, I was 10 minutes late only once [She continues reading the chief’s message] ‘… and you were absent. No mistakes on our part. If you were more serious and respectful, we could pay you by hours, but you are not so STOP IT. Have a nice day’. I replied: ‘My contract is for four hours a day plus food expenses. I don’t agree with you’. And then she replied: ‘Well, I understand. Make a complaint by post, we’ll deal with it’. And she sent another message: ‘After checks, three days’ absence’, [she comments] it was barely one day, [she resumes reading] ‘… delays’, [she comments again] I was 10 minutes late [continues with the message], ‘… and we paid food expense We paid everything and more. You did 65, and we’ll pay you 74. I don’t know what you’re complaining about. It’s me who should be complaining about your behaviour at work.’ [She turns to me a little shocked] What behaviour? I don’t know! In the last text, she writes to me: ‘If you don’t like it, you can quit, okay? And if you keep harassing me, I’ll file a complaint. We are honest, Niora. We don’t abuse anyone, unlike you!’ I answered: ‘No, I’m not harassing you. I just want to understand. Thank you’. It’s the hotel! Did you see…? Our contract is for 86 hours and she pays me 74. And for them, everything is in order! (Niora, interview on 22 March 2017).

As we can see from this interview extract, the struggle to preserve one’s working conditions and ensure the application of the labour code is relentless when one is a worker at the bottom of the ladder (Nizzoli, 2015). Niora is taken to task by her team leader. Working hard, she cannot manage to earn more than 900 euros a month –including the various bonuses she has earned since the strike^[19]. Cleaning companies are constantly changing at the hotel where Niora works. Indeed, the benefits obtained with strikes are so significant that they have become rare and the not so profitable for the cleaning companies, which therefore never stay for too long^[20]. But with each change of service provider, the employees have to fight again to protect their social gains^[21]. What occurs in this hotel is a ‘continuous social movement’, to use the words of the union lawyer in charge of this case. Regular letters are exchanged between the union, the hotel, and the subcontractor. In four years, there have been three strikes on this site. This tiring struggle finally paid off: in July 2019, a final social conflict forced the hotel to incorporate all the employees, as per the clauses set out in the first strike’s end-of-conflict protocol. This is a first in the hotel industry in Marseille.

In this case, the union is an effective resource for imposing new working conditions on the employer. In this sense, it is a means of revaluing one’s identity. However, at the same time, joining a union presupposes a stable off-work life.

3. Those who leave. Towards new horizons?

3.1. Niora: letting go when stability is experienced

Tired of the countless strikes, the hotel where Niora works ends up incorporating the cleaning women. But Niora is not one of these ‘fortunate’ employees. Indeed, in 2017, when she has finally obtained a place in a low-rent apartment in the northern districts of Marseille –changing her two-bedroom apartment for a four-bedroom apartment, where she moved in with her two children, her sister, and her sister’s child^[22]– she hurt herself at work. This was recorded as a labour acciden with a clear diagnosis: Niora suffered a sprained right wrist. As a result, she was given a one-month leave of absence. The following month, Niora returned to work despite still feeling pain. She takes it upon herself for a good reason: her salary is all there is to support her. She cannot afford to quit now. Two months later, the pain becomes unbearable. With a swollen wrist, Niora goes to the emergency room. A CT scan reveals a multiple fracture of the wrist bones, surgery is unavoidable. The doctor prescribes an eight-month leave of absence, but this time it does not qualify as an accident at work.

This second accident occurred just as Niora was beginning to ‘get her head above water’. Indeed, a few days after she returns to work, she falls in love with a young man of Comorian origin. He is actually a neighbour she had been seeing since she moved into her new home. Then things accelerate. Her new boyfriend soon becomes engaged with Niora and helps her financially. He has a job in a restaurant and, in Niora’s words, ‘makes good money. Following T. Ben Jelloun, a hypothesis emerges: ‘the work accident can be interpreted at the symbolic level as the beginning of a kind of “passive revolt” that passes through the body itself: a symbolic mutilation’ (Ben Jelloun, 1977, pp. 69-70). The economic stability provided by her new partner is reassuring and allows her to ‘let go’.

Niora’s story is not an isolated one. On the contrary, it is fairly representative of the reality of this activity sector. Occupational illnesses –caused in particular by repetitive and physically difficult tasks, as well as the use of toxic products– are increasing more strongly in the hotel sector (+3%) than in the rest (+1%)^[23]. Even the most motivated workers mention being fatigued. In short, working as a chambermaid is hard work and it is difficult to make a career out of it. Few of them last long.

3.2. Saliha: an opportunity for professional possibilities?

The cleaning sector is marked by very low upward mobility. Moreover, following R. Sainsaulieu, it appears that those who attempt it are often put in difficulty: ‘Their external resources —educational, economic and family— are quickly affected by this internal adventure of work and one realises the great fragility of this evolving position’ (1977, p. 183). But while external resources can be negatively impacted in the event of failure, they can also be supportive.

In Lyon, Saliha^[24] has been working as a chambermaid in a three-star hotel since 2010. Her husband found her this job through the wife of a former colleague, who was herself a chambermaid. She started her career at the age of 32 after her third child reached the school age.

Saliha is a ‘hard worker’ and a ‘fighter’; at work, she does not spare herself. It is therefore no surprise that she was approached when someone in her position was chosen to take on the job of housekeeper at weekends. This new position allows her to increase her number of working hours (9 hours more per month). In a few words, the housekeeper has to carry out the ‘checks’, i.e., check that the work has been done properly –make sure that there is no hair or dust left and no coffee or towels missing– and distribute the schedules to the rest of the employees. She has a maximum of three minutes to check each room, which is enough if the room is clean; but it is often necessary to correct the work done by some colleagues. In these cases, the three minutes are far exceeded. Like Laila and Niora in Marseille, Saliha is paid by activity. If she finishes later, her salary remains the same. Every month, she never earns more than 900 euros a month. Moreover, her qualification has not changed with her new job. She is still at the lowest level of the cleaning qualification scale (AS1) and has to work every Saturday and Sunday.

But Saliha hangs on. She loves her job: ‘I like everything to be clean. When I return from work, I do my cleaning at home. I don’t like to see dust. I never stop’. She adds: ‘If someone stays at the hotel it’s because they have courage, they are motivated’^[25]. Saliha derives a certain form of recognition and ‘privilege’ from this new ‘honorary’ function as ‘weekend housekeeper’: she allows herself, for instance, to go down to the reception desk to drink her coffee.

I drink my coffee. I don’t care if there are customers or not. I’m dressed properly. What’s the problem? I’ve been there for a long time, drinking my coffee, and no one says anything. But the girls, they never do it. But I’m not a dog. The hotel is clean thanks to us. It’s my job, that’s what I do (Saliha, interview on 06 June 2017).

Saliha shows a real professional conscience, even self-sacrifice. She regrets the some of her colleagues’ absenteeism and distinguishes herself from them: ‘If I’m sick, I can’t leave them. I have to go to work’. Besides, it takes more than an hour for Saliha to get to her workplace near Perrache station. She lives in a low-rent house in Vaulx-en-Velin village^[26]. She has a particularly friendly relationship with her neighbour, Inès, a single mother of three children. The two of them do favours for each other and many things together. Their friendship is based on a strong social homogamy.

However, several elements lead Saliha to a depression that could be described as a professional burnout. After our first interview in March 2017, Saliha manages to get her friend Inès hired at her hotel. But this job does not suit Inès, who finds it excessively tiring and underpaid. As soon as she receives her first paycheck, Inès gives up: ‘I won’t waste my health for 700 euros a month. I’d rather stay at home and relax. With the CAF, I get that much’^[27]. Inès’ refusal to take up this job acts as a kind of disavowal for Saliha. By rejecting her profession, Inès contributes to delegitimising everything Saliha ‘tells herself’ to hold on, in particular the nobility of not being kept, despite the work she does.

No doubt this first experience weakens a certain self-confidence in Saliha’s life. But another encounter puts Saliha’s vision of her work in even greater flux. In the spring of 2017, a trade unionist from the CNT-SO^[28] visited the hotel where Saliha and her colleagues work. She intended to set up a team of union members at the hotel, which employs Nadja, a chambermaid who is already socialised in trade union issues. Indeed, Nadja is a young woman in her thirties with a degree in literature from Algeria who, before leaving her country for France, taught as a language teacher and was a member of the national education union. Because she has an academic background and has previously had a rewarding work experience, Nadja knows deep down that she will not be doing this job for the rest of her life. She became involved in the union and saw her involvement as an opportunity to get out of her position as a maid. She and Saliha become friends. For a while, Saliha approaches the union, She invests in it the hope of a change. She begins to believe that she too has the right to dream of a future other than that of remaining a maid all her life.

The double comparison with Inès, who denies her tenacious dedication, on the one hand, and with Nadja, who allows herself to project, on the other hand, opens up the space of possibilities and thinkables. Nevertheless, this space of possibilities is not as open as might seem. Saliha lacks a degree; her husband, who had a serious back operation following an accident at work –not recognised as such by the temporary employment agency that employed him– is without income. Her family depends on her, so she makes the ‘a necessary choice’ and has to stay at work (Bourdieu, 1979, p. 443). After Inès, it is Nadja’s turn to leave her job as a chambermaid. Saliha holds on for a few more months, but no more. She is granted a sick leave by a psychiatrist. She had ‘taken too many drugs to sleep because otherwise [she] wouldn’t stop crying’.

My daughter called the fire brigade because I couldn’t wake up. I woke up in the [psychiatric] hospital. I said ‘I don’t want to kill myself. I’m not well, it’s true, but I don’t want to stay with you’. They wanted to keep me in hospital for a month. I said ‘No, I’m not ill, I haven’t taken the medication to commit suicide’. I love my children. I just wanted to sleep a little to forget. (Saliha, interview on 11 June 2018).

In autumn 2019, Saliha is still on sick leave. She is less skinny than when she worked every day at the hotel. Generally speaking, she looks better. This short account of Saliha’s experience once again invites us to look beyond the professional sphere. Indeed, it is clear how a series of encounters lead Saliha to question her dedication to work. But it is also when her husband can (at last) go back to work that Saliha ‘breaks down’ and finally takes the time to think about herself.

Conclusion

The work of a chambermaid requires few qualifications. On the other hand, it is a job that relies on the ‘mastery of “temporal skills”, based on availability, even enslavement’. Yet ‘this temporal availability […] is recognised neither materially –in terms of salaries, career, and qualification– nor symbolically’ (Bouffartigue and Bouteiller, 2012, p. 44), in spite of the acknowledgement that recognition is an important issue in the construction of self-identity at work (Sainsaulieu, 1977). The cleaning sector brings together different constraints: its feminisation and outsourcing make it a particularly oppressive sector for those who work there. Gabrielle Schütz (2018), in her study of another similarly constituted sector, has shown how the resulting multiple constraints weigh on female employees and contribute to their professional devaluation.

The three stories of Laila, Niora and Saliha shed light on the difficulties experienced by these employees who have no choice but to keep working. Their families rely on them. These biographical detours show how different social times are intertwined. In this sector, reconciling work and private life is particularly difficult. The place accorded to free time does not have the same meaning depending on one’s work situation. P. Bouffartigue and J. Bouteiller (2012) have clearly evinced how, depending on the working conditions and the content of the activity, individuals do not invest their off-work time in the same way. When work is hard and painful, it interferes with free time, since it is often necessary to use it to ‘recover’ from physical fatigue.

But individuals have a number of resources to cope and get through it despite everything (Faure and Thin, 2019). In some cases, recourse to the union can appear to be a means of (re)negotiating one’s place at work and, more broadly, in society. By occupying hotel entrances during strikes, chambermaids make themselves –at least for a time– visible to passers-by, who usually ignore them. The struggle thus offers both symbolic and, above all, material recognition. That said, union involvement has a price and not everyone can afford it. Indeed, external obligations are sometimes too time-consuming and exceed the private sphere.

There is in fact an interdependence between the individuals’ different social times. We could talk about an intersectionality of resources, or at least a convergence of resources. Thus, if they act together at certain times to promote union membership, they may at another time impose other obligations on the worker. These social resources, such as family, friends, religion, the union, neighbourhood relations, etc., provide the individual with a number of social ties. However, not all social ties function in an emancipatory way. Some are more fragile and can lock the individual into difficult situations (Paugam, 2008). In this case, an accident –at work or outside of work– can offer a reprieve. Whether it is Laila, Niora, Saliha or their colleagues, most of them have had or will have an accident in their career. Their bodies, thus taken hostage, have no choice but to give out. This is also the time when they can breathe, rest, and take care of themselves. In a way, and this is a perverse effect of this work, stopping and resting in the cleaning sector has a cost and it is high.

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