Safe Hotels Act Gets a Hearing at the NYC Council

On Wednesday, members of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council rallied with Safe Hotels Act Sponsor Councilmember Julie Menin as well as other elected officials and supporters before a hearing on the bill in the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection. During the hearing, NYC CLC Chief of Staff Brendan Griffith delivered testimony in support of this critical bill to introduce basic regulations and worker protections to the hotel industry.

"There’s a diverse coalition in support of this bill, including affiliated unions of the CLC like DC37, SEIU 32BJ, NYSNA, CWA, and of course, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council," Brendan noted, adding that "hotels are among the most dangerous workplaces in the country— hotel workers are in the top quarter for workplace injuries, likelier than most to be hurt on the job, including being assaulted."

The Safe Hotels Act would require that hotels be licensed, and that they equip their workers with panic buttons, technology that’s been successfully implemented statewide in Illinois and New Jersey, and is already a feature of unionized hotels in NYC. The bill would also require hotels to directly employ core staff including front desk and housekeeping staff. Currently, the core work of a hotel is being shifted to subcontractors so that owners bear no legal responsibility when a subcontracted worker is mistreated, injured, or suffers wage theft. Subcontractors are notoriously hard to pin down when a worker pushes a legal issue. The bill ensures that workers who are cheated or abused will be able to have their issues addressed.

Read CLC President Vincent Alvarez's September amNY OpEd on the Safe Hotels Act here, read Terri Gerstein's new Daily News OpEd here, and check out a short video from HTC here!

Today we were proud to participate in a hearing on the #SafeHotels Act, introduced by @NYCCouncil Member @JulieMenin. Chief of Staff @BrndnGrffth testified in support of this critical bill to introduce basic regulations and worker protections to the hotel industry. 1/ pic.twitter.com/4amfqISGDg

— NYC CLC, AFL-CIO (@CentralLaborNYC) October 9, 2024