MIAMI BEACH, FL — The #MeToo movement has come ashore in the sizzling sands of Miami Beach. City officials unanimously adopted a so-called panic-button law Wednesday to protect the thousands of hotel workers who deal with unruly guests and debaucherous parties of the glitterati on a daily basis. Miami Beach workers will be able to summon help at the touch of a button when they feel they are being sexually harassed or worse.
“The statistics are beyond concerning, and it’s why I pushed for this necessary action to be undertaken by the City,” explained Miami Beach Commissioner Kristen Rosen Gonzalez, who sponsored the measure.
Subscribe to Miami Beach Patch’s free email news alerts and newsletters to stay up to date on what’s happening in this urban beach resort
A similar law took effect in Chicago earlier this month. Other cities like Seattle have taken similar steps while hotels elsewhere are required to provide panic buttons under collective bargaining agreements with their workers.
Miami Beach has long been known as a city where celebrities and others go to let loose. City officials here even joke: “What happens in Miami Beach never happened.”
But that’s about to change as hotel workers will have a new tool to protect themselves.
The measure takes effect in August of 2019, when hotels and hostels must offer devices at no cost to employees. Hospitality businesses must also place a sign with information about the devices on the inside of each guestroom door.
The devices can range in cost from $3 for a smartphone version up to $50.
“We’re not calling it panic buttons. We’re calling them safety buttons,” Rosen Gonzalez told Patch ahead of Wednesday’s vote. “We just want to make sure that housekeepers are equipped with some kind of device where they can alert security.”
It’s not only housekeepers but any hotel employee who is likely to have one-on-one interactions with the millions of hotel guests who flock to this urban beach resort as soon as temperatures start to dip back home. This includes the person who stocks mini bars or delivers food and laundry.
“Truth be told. South Beach is a crazy place. People drink too much. They do drugs. They go back to these hotel rooms and you know who suffers: The workers, the hospitality workers,” added Rosen Gonzalez, who herself was involved in a much publicized sexual harassment case over the past year.
In Miami Beach, which has more than 11,000 hotel workers, Rosen Gonzalez said that more than 60 percent of female hotel workers are believed to be victims of sexual harassment at one time or another. That’s roughly the same as in Chicago.
“Sixty percent of women who work in hospitality and have to go into people’s hotel rooms find that they get sexually harassed. They get touched,” Rosen Gonzalez explained. “These are people who don’t speak English. They are making very low wages so most of the time they don’t speak up because they are afraid.”
Click Here: Cheap Chiefs Rugby Jersey 2019
Photo by Paul Scicchitano