New Study Reports High Injury Rates for Hotel Workers, Even Higher

New York, NY - A new study released on Monday, August 27, 2007 at PREMUS – the Sixth International Scientific Conference on Prevention of Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders, held in Boston, highlights the differences in injury rates by gender, race/ethnicity or both. Dr. Susan Buchanan, University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, presented the alarming results that raise many questions as to why certain workers are getting injured at different rates. PREMUS is a prestigious academic conference, gathering researchers from around the world with the goal of preventing work-related musculoskeletal disorders.

This first study ever on the differences in injury rates by race, ethnicity and gender of hotel workers in the United States utilized hotel employer records of work-related injuries and employee hiring list data. This is the largest study of hotel workers’ injuries ever performed in the United States aside from data that the Department of Labor collects annually.

Dr. Buchanan, along with professors from the University of Massachusetts Lowell, University of California San Francisco and Hunter College School of Health Sciences collaborated with UNITE HERE, the union of hospitality workers, on this study of over 28,000 hotel workers employed in 72 unionized hotels during the 2003-2005 time period. The hotel companies included in the study are Hilton, Hyatt, Intercontinental, Marriott and Starwood.

A sample of 35 union hotels in the “full-service” sector was selected for further study of disparities in injury rates by gender and race/ethnicity. This sample includes 16,000 workers employed annually with over 700 injuries occurring each year.
New Study Reports High Injury Rates for Hotel Workers, Even Higher

Key Findings:

Hotel Workers – New Analysis Provides Descriptive Data on Key Job Titles

The job titles included in this new injury study – room attendants, stewards/dishwashers, banquet servers and cooks/kitchen workers -- represent 49% of the hotel workforce; therefore, these study findings require serious attention given the large number of workers affected in the hotel industry.

Female Workers – Highest Rates of Injuries

Disparities by gender: injury rates of 5.5% for females compared to 3.7% for males.

In job titles where both males and females are employed, female workers’ injury rates are consistently higher than males:

Stewards/Dishwashers: 10.1% vs. 5.1% in males
Cooks: 6.1% vs. 5.1% in males
Banquet Servers: 2.6% vs. 1.8% in males
Workers of Color – Higher Rates Consistently by Subgroups

Disparities by race/ethnicity: injury rates of 4.9% for nonwhites compared to 3.0% for whites, with even higher rates by demographic subgroups.

Injury rates are higher for nonwhites in 3 out of 4 job titles -- housekeepers, cooks and banquet servers.
Women Workers of Color – Combined Risks Equal Highest Risks of All

The combination of increased risk by gender with the increased risk by race/ethnicity suggests an even greater increased risk for women of color:

Female Hispanic Stewards/Dishwashers: 10.0%
Female Hispanic Room Attendants: 9.5%
Female Asian Cooks: 8.9%
Female Hispanic Banquet Servers: 3.9%
Female Black Hotel Workers: 3.8%