Almost ten months after former French Presidential hopeful and IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Khan was accused of sexually assaulting a house keeper at his luxury Manhattan suite, hotels across New York are set to hand out panic alarms to their employees so they can call for immediate help.
Hotel workers in the city have also been granted a swathe of new benefits, including pay rises, bigger pension contributions and full medical insurance.
The panic alarm provision, which hotels have agreed to implement over the next year, has been stipulated in a new, seven-year contract that city hotels approved last week. The Hotel Association of New York City presented the agreement to members of the New York Hotel Trades Council, AFL-CIO, on Tuesday, and the deal is set to be ratified on February 13.
According to a report in TheStar.com, neither hotel owners nor the union officials involved in the deal admitted that the Strauss-Kahn case had an impact on the provision. However, there is no doubt that the case, which quickly became an international scandal before charges against Strauss-Khan were dropped, highlighted the dangers that hotel employees are exposed to when entering the room’s of guests alone to carry out their duties.
Hotel unions denied the Strauss-Khan scandal led to the decision. Image by Parti socialiste, via flickr.com
Under the new agreement, New York hotels will now be required to equip panic alarms to certain employees “that can be quickly and easily activated to summon assistance to their location.”
“It’s a simple and cost-efficient way to keep hotel employees safe,” said Rory Lanceman, a Democrat who sponsored a bill proposing similar measures late last year.
“We’re very grateful that hotels have adopted the premise of our bill,” added Lanceman.
Among the employees eligible to receive a panic alarm are housekeepers, attendants who stock mini-bars, room-service waiters and waitresses, plus other employees at the discretion of hotels.
Other aspects of the deal will see hotel workers given generous salary increases of 29% over the seven-year contract’s lifetime, as well as guaranteed free medical, optical and dental insurance, and an increase in pension contributions by their employers, from 9% to 10.5%.