Hands Off, Pants On
Hands Off, Pants On is a campaign against sexual harassment in the hotel industry in Chicago. The campaign is led by UNITE HERE Local 1.[1]
In 2016, the union conducted a survey of about 500 hotel workers. The union found that 58 percent of hotel employees and 77 percent of casino workers said they had been sexually harassed. 49 percent of housekeepers claimed to have been subject to indecent exposure. The survey was supposedly in response to a case where a waitress at Neil Bluhm’s Rivers Casino was pulled onto the lap of a guest and asked for a blow job.[2][3][1]
UNITE HERE has proposed legislation that would ban hotel guests who have sexually harassed an employee. The union also supported requiring hotels to give "panic buttons" to any employee who who works alone in guest rooms. Unionized hotels would be exempt from these rules.[4][5][1]