Current gains & continuing hazards in the hospitality industry: Hotel workers report on successes of and resistance to workplace changes for improved health and safety

Hotel employers and employees across the United States and Canada have made progress on workplace health and safety through collective bargaining agreements at “full service” hotels with UNITE HERE, the union representing hotel workers.

Contract language improvements in varying properties include a decrease in the number of rooms cleaned under certain conditions; inclusion of the text of the OSHA General Duty Clause as a provision of the collective bargaining agreement; ergonomic interventions for kitchen equipment and tools; counting of rollaway beds and cots as part of a room quota; and replacement of heavy duvets and triple sheeting with fitted sheets and lighter bedding.

Hotel workers actively participated in these changes -- through grievances, collaboration with ergonomic experts and union health and safety staff to measure hazards on the job, performing worker pain surveys, talking with the media, holding meetings with hotel general managers to demand lighter workloads, and by speaking up as part of mediations between the union and hotel lawyers to demand changes in workplace practices. These are the successes that hotel workers will include in their presentation.

But hazards remain and health and safety improvements are resisted still at other hotels.

Hotel workers currently engaged in these fights will report on their actions and management's response, whether contract renewal fights to retain their gains in health and safety or in non-union hotels where union recognition is a first step towards gaining a voice on the job about working conditions.