"Creating Luxury, Enduring Pain: How Hotel Work is Hurting Housekeepers"
No author cited
UNITE HERE!, April 2006
A recent study entitled "Creating Luxury, Enduring Pain" couples new research with the stories of hotel housekeepers to paint a dramatic picture of the work involved in the hotel and hospitality industry. Findings show that behind the luxury and comfort that housekeepers provide for hotel guests is a pattern of persistent pain and injury.
The report utilizes the first comprehensive analysis of employer records of worker injuries, including records of the major five hotel companies. The analysis was conducted from 1999 to 2005 among over 60 hotel properties with approximately 40,000 hotel employees. The report finds that not only are housekeepers injured more frequently than other hotel and service workers, but this problem is only getting worse as hotel companies implement room changes including heavier beds and in-room amenities like coffee makers and treadmills.
Key findings include that, in a survey of over 600 hotel housekeepers, 91 percent reported experiencing workplace pain. This pain is so severe that 67 percent of hotel housekeepers who reported workplace pain visited a doctor. In addition, over the six-year period of study, hotel housekeepers faced an injury rate of 10.4 percent, which is over 86 percent higher than the injury rate experienced by non-housekeepers (5.6 percent).
Hotel rooms have become more hazardous places to work in recent years. Between 2002 and 2005, housekeepers had a 71 percent higher risk of injury relative to all hotel workers compared to 47 percent in the 1999 to 2001 period.
Special thanks to Amanda Cooper at UNITE HERE! for supplying the study link.
