As of Sunday, Chicago hotel staff must be provided with portable panic buttons while performing housekeeping duties alone.
The new ordinance applies to workers who "clean, inventory, inspect or re-stock supplies" by themselves in guestrooms or restrooms, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Chicago City Council unanimously passed the requirement last fall. The Windy City joins other major cities such as New York, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., which have similar laws in place.
The compliant-based law will require hotel employees to come forward if they are not supplied with panic buttons.
Hotel workers' unions have been pushing for the safety devices for some time now as multiple studies and reports have produced troubling data regarding guest conduct.
"Fifty-eight percent of the hotel workers we surveyed said they'd experienced sexual harassment by a guest," Karen Kent of Unite Here Local 1 told ABC 7. "Forty-nine percent said they'd seen a guest naked, had a guest expose themselves or had a guest flash them."
In a statement, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said hotel employees "deserve not just our respect, but our sustained efforts to prevent, prohibit and punish harassment whenever and wherever it occurs."
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