NYC Council Overwhelmingly Passes Safe Hotels Act

On Wednesday, the New York City Council overwhelmingly passed the Safe Hotels Act by a vote of 45-4. This crucial bill, introduced by Councilmember Julie Menin, licenses hotels—bringing NYC in line with other large cities to protect guests, workers and communities by ensuring that hotels live up to reasonable standards.

Once signed by Mayor Adams, the Safe Hotels Act will 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 will also require hotels with more than 100 rooms 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.

“It wasn’t easy getting here, we had some powerful forces aligned against us, forces that put profits over people, some bad actors who care more about their bottom lines than they do about the human beings who work and stay in these hotels,” said Richard Maroko, President of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council (HTC) which championed the bill. “But in the end it was inevitable that we would get to this point.” Read more in the New York Daily News, amNY, and the New York Times, and follow the HTC on Twitter for more pics and video.