Protecting Service Sector Workers from Ergonomic Hazards: Evaluation of OSHA's Response to Hotel Workers' Complaints

Background: In 2010, hotel housekeepers filed OSHA complaints in eight U.S. cities against twelve full service hotels belonging to a single, major hotel company. These complaints involved repetitive motion injuries related to hotel room cleaning in addition to other hazards such as slips, trips and falls; failure to provide personal protective equipment, etc. Remedies for these hazards were included in these complaints with the goal of having them become the industry standard. Methods: The complaints were filed with both federal OSHA area offices and state OSHA plans, namely, California, Hawaii and Indiana. The hotel housekeepers were employed at union and non-union properties, and were predominantly immigrant workers and women of color. Methods used to actively engage and sustain worker participation in these complaints will be described. Results: These OSHA complaints, the agency's response to them and the outcome of the investigations will serve to highlight the many challenges facing federal OSHA and the Obama Administration in 2011: the effectiveness of the state OSHA plans; the agency's plan and policies for enforcement regarding ergonomic hazards; and OSHA's response to increasing political pressure from anti-government regulation forces in the midst of an economic crisis. Conclusions: An assessment of OSHA's performance as an agency at the federal and state levels will be made. Recommendations will be made to unions and other worker advocates about resources required to file such complaints and those necessary to respond to the OSHA investigations. The future of controlling ergonomic hazards by OSHA enforcement efforts will be discussed.