May 21, 2011
This point should have been mentioned in a NYT article on the risk of sexual assault/harassment that housekeepers face in hotels. As the article notes, many housekeepers are reluctant to bring such attacks to the attention of their supervisors and/or law enforcement both out of embarrassment, but also out of fear of losing their jobs.
In this particular case, the housekeeper belonged to a union that has provisions in its contract that explicitly require the management to take cases of sexual assault or harassment seriously. This meant the housekeeper knew that she could make a complaint to management and not worry about being ridiculed or putting her job at risk. This fact would have been worth mentioning in the article.
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