LAX Hilton flagged on labor rules
In what may be the first action of its kind, California workplace safety regulators have charged that the duties performed by housekeepers at a hotel -- scrubbing, bed making, vacuuming -- violate the state’s repetitive-motion rules.
A citation issued late last month by the Division of Occupational Safety and Health identified eight infractions at the Hilton Los Angeles Airport hotel.
The Hilton is one of several hotels near the airport whose employees the Unite Here union wants to organize, and the citation was issued after a complaint was filed with the agency by two Hilton housekeepers and a labor health advocacy group that supports the union.
The hotel plans to appeal the citation, a spokesman said.
California is the only state that explicitly requires employers to minimize the risk of repetitive-motion injuries through training and, if necessary, by redesigning job tasks. The rules were adopted in 1997.
A short-lived federal standard adopted in 2000 was replaced with voluntary guidelines in 2002 by the Bush administration. Federal officials can cite employers for failing to prevent ergonomic injuries under a “general duty” provision of federal workplace safety laws, but the burden of proof is high, said Len Welsh, head of the state agency, which is known as Cal/OSHA.
The LAX Hilton “did not follow policies that other Hilton hotels followed,” Welsh said. He added that other chains had adopted a number of approaches to training housekeepers that could alleviate repetitive-motion stress and had given workers leeway to break up tasks with rest time to prevent injuries.
“I believe hotels are aware of repetitive-motion injuries, and some are better than others at dealing with them, Welsh said.
Several studies in recent years have documented growing injury rates among housekeepers, particularly at upscale hotels that have added heavier mattresses and filled rooms with more furniture to dust, mirrors to polish and coffeepots and hair dryers to clean.
Housekeeper Adela Barrientos, one of the two named in the complaint, said her work had become harder in the nine years she’d been with the LAX Hilton. “They keep putting more things in the room,” she said, and haven’t reduced her assignment to clean 16 rooms each day.
Four years ago, the South Los Angeles resident developed tendinitis in her right arm.
“It’s better now,” she said, “but it was alarming. The work is too much.”
The hotel is entangled in a bitter, protracted labor dispute involving Unite Here, which says that workers who want to organize have been intimidated and harassed and that a majority of the employees support the boycott it called last year. The Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health is convening a noontime news conference today at the hotel to discuss the citation.
The 16-page citation addresses eight specific violations relating to the repetitive-motion rules, along with an unrelated labor code violation involving hazards associated with the maintenance of an electrical plate.
Fines total $14,425, according to the citation.
“The citation has confirmed what workers have been telling their physicians and management at the LAX Hilton, that this work and the workload are causing them pain and injury,” said Pamela Vossenas, senior health and safety representative for the hotel division of Unite Here.
The hotel has until Wednesday to file an appeal or a plan to abate the problems, said Kate McGuire, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Industrial Relations.
Failure to do so could subject the Hilton to additional penalties.
Ruben Gonzalez, a spokesman for the LAX Hilton, said management was making “a constant effort to improve the health and safety operations of the hotel.”
The Hilton could make a number of changes to reduce the chance of injury, said Eden Flynn, a spokeswoman for the Southern California Coalition, including providing training materials in Spanish as well as English, cutting the number of rooms each housekeeper has to clean and adding male housekeepers to help lift heavy mattresses and cleaning equipment.
