LV hotel housekeepers are stressed, study says

Monday, May 20, 2002 | 11:05 a.m.

Las Vegas housekeepers are less healthy than their counterparts in San Francisco because of higher job stress and more demanding workloads, a new academic study funded by the Culinary Union shows.

The study, directed by Dr. Niklas Krause, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, found that the pressure of cleaning more rooms in less time has led to greater physical ailments, such as high blood pressure, among guest room attendants (GRAs) in Las Vegas.

"The findings of this study clearly suggest that the relatively high levels of poor health and severe pain among Las Vegas GRAs -- compared with those in San Francisco or the general U.S. population -- are at least in part attributable to the relatively high physical workload, time pressure and other job stressors described in this study," Krause concluded in his 58-page report.

Culinary Union leaders made public the results of the study today in the last two critical weeks of collective bargaining negotiations with the casino industry, as a June 1 strike deadline draws near.

The union's top priorities in the talks are ensuring free health care benefits and reducing housekeeper workloads, which increased after Sept. 11 because of massive layoffs in the industry.

This morning Mike Sloan, Mandalay Resort Group senior vice president, questioned the timing and methodology of the study.

"You really have to question the purpose of a study that is released after the union has taken a strike vote and after it has announced its position on guest room attendants," Sloan said.

"We all recognize how hard guest room attendants work, but this is another publicity effort on the union's part."

Sloan said his company asked other academics to review the study, and they said it is of "marginal significance."

"If the union had been serious about this, we think they would have asked us to jointly participate in the study," he said. "There is no independent verification of the claims made in the study from objective third party data."

But D. Taylor, the union's secretary-treasurer, hailed the study.

"I think that the study verifies everything that we've been saying about the effects of the workload on housekeepers and how that's been taking a physical and emotional toll on them," Taylor said. "The study is thorough and academically sound."

Krause and a team of epidemiologists conducted surveys and field research from a pool of 1,276 day shift guest room attendants at five union hotels on the Strip over the past several months. Each housekeeper was given an extensive questionnaire describing their working conditions to fill out. A similar study of San Francisco housekeepers, funded by the union, was done by Krause in 1998.

The names of the five Las Vegas hotels are not being released, but properties from each of the "Big Four" Strip operators negotiating a new contract reportedly were among those studied. The four companies are Mandalay Resort Group, MGM MIRAGE, Park Place Entertainment and Harrah's Entertainment.

Las Vegas housekeepers on the average clean 15.2 rooms per day compared with 14 in San Francisco, Krause said in his report.

"More than three-quarters of all GRAs experience time pressure, and two-thirds skip lunch or breaks or work longer hours to complete their work assignments," Krause said.

In his executive summary Krause said: "The findings of this study are suggestive of an association between poor working conditions and reduced health in hotel room cleaners ...

"This study also found that room cleaners have high rates of work-related pain and disability and that the health status of room cleaners is below the national average."

On a scale of 100, Krause said, the average health rating for Las Vegas housekeepers is 39 compared to the 72 for the rest of the American population. San Francisco guest room attendants have a rating of 56. The scale was based on answers provided by the housekeepers on an extensive questionnaire. A higher score means better health.

Krause and his associates monitored the blood pressure of 591 housekeepers during the study and found that 39.3 percent experienced hypertension, which is well above the 25 percent average for all adult Americans.

The study, Krause said, suggests that there is "substantial potential for improving working conditions" for Las Vegas housekeepers.

On Friday union housekeepers took to the streets to inform tourist of their plight. They handed out thousands of leaflets downtown and on the Strip.

The fliers quoted several housekeepers describing their working conditions.

"Cleaning 17 or 18 rooms in 7 hours is impossible in Sin City," Harrah's housekeeper Debra Davis is quoted as saying in the leaflet.

Felicia Murillo, a Mandalay Bay guest room attendant, added: "Most times we can't stop for lunch or even a break. I think they take advantage of us as immigrants."

Culinary Union leaders have said they still are far apart on the housekeeping issues with the hotels, as the June 1 strike deadline approaches.

The union, which also has made a top priority of preserving free health care coverage for its members, meets later this week with negotiators for Park Place and Harrah's in the hopes of reaching an agreement on a new contract.