Empire State Today

A weeping cook, furloughed from her job at Long Island hotel last week because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is one of thousands in the travel and hotel industry suddenly out of work.

Hyatt Regency Long Island Human Resources Director Rosa Morakis had to break the news to "Maria," one of thousands of associates furloughed from their jobs with Remington Hotels nationwide. 

"It's a very sad story that happened in our hotel due to the coronavirus and the devastating impact of it on our industry, our city, our country and the world," Morakis said in a statement to Empire State Today. 

President Donald Trump, with members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, on Monday, March 16, issuing new guidelines to help protect Americans during the global Coronavirus outbreak | whitehouse.gov

This past weekend, Morakis had to inform 53 Hyatt Regency Long Island associates that they had been furloughed.

"Associates that have worked so hard to meet both the company's and our guests' expectations, associates who need their jobs to survive," Morakis recalled. "How can I do this? I started to pray and I asked God to help me deliver this horrible message."

Maria arrived with a smile, holding her 18-month-old son, saying she had no choice but to bring him as she had no one to watch him during her visit with Morakis, the human resources director recalled.

"Once I gave her the news, she starting crying and begging me for the job," Morakis recalled. "She told me she needed her job more than anything else because she is the only one to provide for her child. Without her job, how could she provide for her child?"

Morakis said Maria also admitted she had no food at home, no family or anyone she could turn to for help.

"Please don’t take my job away from me," Morakis recalled Maria saying. "I need to work to survive. Please help me."

Morakis and the Hyatt's general manager gave Maria money from their own pockets to buy food but everyone knew it wouldn't last.

"We were trying to help but Maria kept crying and thanking us and begging us that the only thing she wanted was to work," Morakis said.

Maria is far from alone amid the uncertainty wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There are so many faces and stories like Maria's," Morakis said. "People who depend on their jobs to survive, so we can't stop an industry that provides them with these jobs.  We need government support in this crisis so that something positive can come out of it."

Like Maria, Remington Hotels faces an uncertain future.

"Remington Hotels is struggling in the face of the coronavirus," Remington Hotels President and CEO Sloan Dean III said in a statement. 

Dean's appointment as president and CEO of Remington Hotels was announced in December.

Remington, founded in 1968, is a hotel management company that also provides providing property management services. Its hospitality wing manages 86 hotels in 26 states across 17 brands.

The suffering of Remington Hotels' employees is a small portion of the larger story about how COVID-19 threatens the world's economy. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned earlier this week that COVID-19 could drive unemployment in the U.S. to 20%, levels not seen since the Great Depression.

The travel and hospitality industry is asking for about $150 billion in relief.

Like the rest of the industry, Remington Hotels has been hit hard by COVID-19, which has sunk its business to "beyond depression levels" and Remington anticipates losses this year in the hundreds of millions, Dean said.

Remington Hotels expects hotels that it manages to run at 90% lower occupancy levels in April 2020, compared to the same month last year, Dean said.

"Most all of our 6,800 associates are furloughed," he said, adding that the entire situation is a "disaster."

Dean said assistance will need to come from the nation's top leadership.

Priorities for the entire industry were presented to President Donald Trump on Tuesday, March 17 by the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

Those priorities are emergency assistance for employees, a workforce stabilization fund from the U.S. Treasury Department, preservation of business liquidity that would include $100 billion for employee retention and rehiring, and tax relief

"For many Americans in our sector, this health crisis will be compounded by economic hardship in the coming weeks and months," Dean said. "Congress must act now!! Time is essential as unemployment claims in hospitality will be in the millions."