The incidence rate for work-related injury and illness for workers across all job classifications at Harvard's hotel during 2013 was 75% higher than the average for hotel and other accommodation workers in Massachusetts during 2012-the most recent year for which the government has reported data. "Hotel workers already have high rates of injury," said Dr. Laura Punnett, an ergonomics expert at the UMASS Lowell Center for Women and Work who will also join the roundtable."When we see a hotel with higher injury rates and a heavy workload, it raises questions about potential danger."
Many of the immigrant women who clean Harvard’s Double Tree Suites report that their work causes them pain. In a 2013 study of workers at Harvard’s hotel, 100% of surveyed housekeepers reported that they were in pain. The hotel’s record show that housekeepers have suffered injuries in recent years as diverse as straining their backs and shoulders, twisting a knee, splashing Comet in their eyes, tripping over bedsheets, spraining an ankle, and more.Harvard’s housekeepers also report high workload. They are responsible for cleaning 14 two-room suites per day, when housekeepers at unionized properties in Boston typically clean 15 single rooms, and if they clean a suite, it counts as two.It is impossible to measure an injury rate at the hotel in years 2010-2012 since Harvard’s hotel failed to comply with this obligation. In 2013, the incidence rate for work-related injury and illness for workers at the hotel was 75% higher than the rate for all Massachusetts hotel workers and other accommodation workers for 2012.In October 2014 after meeting with housekeepers from the Harvard’s hotel, Boston City Councilors Michelle Wu and Ayanna Pressley and Cambridge City Councilor Denise Simmons called on Harvard president Drew Faust to review the safety of Harvard’s hotel housekeepers.On October 15, 2014, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began an inspection of health and safety practices at Harvard’s Double Tree Suites in response to a complaint by the hotel’s workers.Source: “Our Pain, Harvard’s Gain”