Is hotel housekeepers’ health adequately protected by national and international law?

Hotel housekeepers are exposed to numerous health risks, among them musculoskeletal strains and injuries, acute traumas, chemical exposure and the risks which come with long working hours. Hotel housekeepers in the United States have the highest overall injury rate, the highest musculoskeletal disorder rate and the highest acute trauma rate among all occupational groups of workers.

This has led the IUF-affiliated UNITE HERE! to investigate, in cooperation with The Transnational Development Clinic at Yale Law School, whether the industry’s many hazards are taken into account in international standards and in Argentine, Indian and Indonesian domestic laws, and to identify the major gaps in legal protection for hotel housekeepers and how these gaps might be addressed.

The results of the study will be available to IUF affiliates later this year.

The presentation prepared by UNITE HERE! and presented to the ILO is available here.