I am a theoretical physicist and currently Director of 
June 06, 2011
Hotel housekeepers
The recent events surrounding Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund accused of sexually assaulting the person assigned to clean his hotel room shows, irrespective of the truth of the matter that eventually emerges, how vulnerable hotel housekeeping staff is to predatory guests.
Jacob Tomsky, who has worked in various capacities in the luxury hospitality business, says that events like those alleged in the Strauss-Kahn story are sadly all too frequent, and that guests not only often try to take advantage of the staff sexually, they also frequently falsely accuse them of doing things such as stealing, making international calls from the room, going through their belongings, etc..
I encounter the housekeeping staff in hotels quite a lot. When I go to conferences, the meetings take place in the hotel itself and so I frequently go back to my room during the day between sessions, sometimes for extended periods when there are no talks I want to listen to. Since I cannot read or work very well in public places with a lot of background noise and movement (a symptom of my need for lack of distractions when I am working), I prefer to work in the quiet of my room. As a result, I frequently encounter the housekeeping staff, sometimes in the hallways, and sometimes when they knock when I am in the room. It never happens that they come in unexpectedly because I always have the deadbolt in place when I am in the room.
The host-guest relationship becomes ambiguous when you stay in a hotel. Since you are renting the room, it 'belongs' to you in some sense and so, if you wish, you can think of yourself as the host and anyone who enters as a guest or, in the case of the housekeepers, your personal employees. On the other hand, you are the transient while the housekeeping staff is there permanently, which can make you feel like you are the guest and they are the host. I tend to think of myself in the latter category and so I try to accommodate the hosts and not upset the work schedule of the housekeeping staff. As a result, if they arrive and knock while I am the room, I tell them to go ahead and clean the room while I continue to work, and they usually do so.
My interactions with the housekeeping staff are friendly but minimal, limited to exchanging smiles and a few pleasantries, since we both have work to do. It had not occurred to me until the Strauss-Kahn story broke that the staff might have to make quick judgments in such situations as to whether I could be trusted to be in the same room with them.
As Dean Baker points out, one of the important facts about this case is that the reason that the employee was able to complain was that she belonged to a union.
This matters because under the law in the United States, an employer can fire a worker at any time for almost any reason. It is illegal for an employer to fire a worker for reporting a sexual assault. If any worker can prove that this is reason they were fired, they would get their job back and probably back pay. (The penalties tend to be trivial, so the back pay is unfortunately not a joke.)
However, it is completely legal for an employer to fire a worker who reports a sexual assault for having been late to work last Tuesday or any other transgression. Since employers know the law, they don't ever say that they are firing a worker for reporting a sexual assault. They might fire workers who report sexual assaults for other on-the-job failings, real or invented.
In this way the United States stands out from most other wealthy countries. For example, all the countries of Western Europe afford workers some measure of employment protection, where employers must give a reason for firing workers. Workers can contest their dismissal if they think the reason is not valid, unlike the United States where there is no recourse.
Unions matter for many things other than the ones we most focus on, such as obtaining decent pay and benefits. They also provide minimal protections against abuses by the rich and powerful. Without them, management of luxury hotels would be strongly tempted to sacrifice their employees in order to placate the wealthy clientele who abuse them.
Comments
I completely agree with the comments made above. No employee should ever have to accept any form of assault and in my opinion it's a basic human right to work within an environment which actively discourages such behaviour.
The hotels in question will be reluctant to change their policies and practices due the huge profits they make from a small number of wealthy individuals. But this is something that needs to be addressed.
No employee should have to accept this kind of abuse or assault and in my view it is a basic human right to work an environment that is free of such behaviour.
I suspect that the hotels in question will not anything about this since they rely upon the small number of very wealthy individuals that frequent their hotels to generate healthy profits. Something does need to change within the industry.
I believe that employees should not have to endure any type of assaulting behavior by employers or patrons.
It would be a wise idea for the hospitality industries education system present a course of knowledge on rights and defenses of employees, available to students pursuing management positions within the hospitality Industry.
This could give an insight to what reactions an employee may take that are available to them within Unionized sectors. Preventing management from pursuing biased decisions on employee job status following such incriminating incidents.
Nobody should have to endure any kind of abusive behaviour no matter what their role is and employers should have safeguards in place to protect employees.
While I agree that no employee should have to encounter such treatment, the fact of the matter is that in the US most employees are considered "at-will" and as such they can be fired for basically anything. I work for a hote supply company, and if I reported sexual misconduct by my boss, they could sure as hell find something else to fire me for - like spending time reading your blog. It's unfortunate, but it's how our laws are setup...