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For Housekeepers' Safety, Hotel Panic Buttons To Be Required In Chicago

Published June 27, 2018 at 12:40 PM CDT
In this Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, photo, Isabel Escobar stands in front of window at her home in Chicago. Escobar, who was born in Guatemala, has cleaned homes for years in the U.S. and has suffered sexual harassment on the job. Unions and worker associations say that immigrant women who clean offices, hotels or homes suffer sexual harassment often but hardly report it because of fear of losing their jobs or fear of being deported. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)
In this Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, photo, Isabel Escobar stands in front of window at her home in Chicago. Escobar, who was born in Guatemala, has cleaned homes for years in the U.S. and has suffered sexual harassment on the job. Unions and worker associations say that immigrant women who clean offices, hotels or homes suffer sexual harassment often but hardly report it because of fear of losing their jobs or fear of being deported. (Nam Y. Huh/AP)

Starting next month, Chicago will join Seattle in requiring hotels to provide all housekeepers with panic buttons they can use if they are sexually assaulted, harassed or threatened by a guest.

Here & Now‘s Robin Young speaks with Ely Dar, a hotel housekeeper at the Westin Seattle, and Abby Lawlor, a researcher with Unite Here Local 8 in Seattle, a hospitality union which has been advocating for the panic buttons.

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