#MeToo: I Stand with Hotel Housekeepers

Seattle Hotel Association

We stand with hotel housekeepers. As the current moment sheds light on the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault throughout countless professions, we join together with solidarity and with shared experience to support the women of Seattle’s hospitality industry.

Hotel housekeepers are predominantly immigrant women and women of color who work for low wages at great risk: in Seattle, 53 percent have reported experiencing sexual harassment or assault on the job. Through their leadership, voters passed an initiative in November 2016 to combat through law exactly the types of behavior now garnering national attention and outcry. The Seattle Hotel Employees Health and Safety Ordinance shows that it is possible to craft public policies that support women, embrace our values, and offer workers genuine recourse to respond to harassment and assault.

Unfortunately, these policies are disputed, and employers have attacked Seattle’s law in order to maintain their own power and to silence the women who work for them.

It has been a year since the Seattle made history with the passage of Initiative 124. We cannot go backwards.
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To: Seattle Hotel Association
From: [Your Name]

To our city’s hotel employers: you are on the wrong side of history. Believe women and protect your employees. Recognize the damaging impacts sexual harassment and assault have on victims and the tremendous barriers they face in coming forward. Do your part to create consequences for guests who harass and assault women on your watch. Be accountable for your role in supporting your employees. Seattle voters have given you a framework to follow. We expect you to follow it.