The maids in hotels in the USA are given “emergency buttons” to protect them from customers.

Фото: Depositphotos

Hotel maids are often the targets of sexual harassment or victims of inappropriate guest behavior.

In connection with the wave of scandals with sexual harassment in many industries in the United States, hotels also came under more scrutiny in the matter of protecting the safety of not only their clients, but also employees, writes Bloomberg.

A California court ruled in October that a hotel employee could sue his employer if he was sexually harassed or abused inside the hotel.

Advocates for women's rights, as well as trade unions of hotel employees, urge hotels to issue emergency buttons to employees to help protect them from guests. In 2018, nearly half of the union’s hotel workers’s terms expire, and the responsibility of hotel management for their safety in the workplace is likely to be the main point of negotiation of contract renewal terms.

Emergency buttons are not a new invention. Since 2013, union-member hotel housekeepers in New York City have carried these buttons, which, if necessary, call for help in the room where the employee is located.

The union does not keep general statistics on the use of buttons, but a representative of the organization said that in November the devices were used at least twice in one of the large hotels in the center of New York. The button was used by staff threatened by guests. In both cases, the administration evicted guests from the hotel.

In the hotels of Seattle, employees now have electronic whistles or buttons equipped with GPS, which send a signal to the hotel security service, in some hotels employees are given iPads equipped with a special alert function. The decision to issue the hotel staff of such equipment was taken by residents of the city to vote.

In addition, the Chicago City Council in October 2017, unanimously voted to use such devices in hotels in the city.

The American Hotel Association, which includes leading brands such as Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt and other objects, highly appreciated the introduction of such security measures, stressing that the priority of the hotel should be the safety of not only guests, but also employees.

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