On Monday, November 4, 2024, New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed the Safe Hotels Act into law. The Act imposes several new requirements on owners and operators of New York City hotels, with additional obligations for larger hotels, that will take effect on May 3, 2025 (180 days after it was signed). The Act requires that hotels obtain a license to operate, and imposes requirements on such licensing. For example, a hotel must employ “core employees” directly; establish minimum front desk staffing levels, cleanliness standards, and security staffing levels; conduct mandatory employee training; and provide panic buttons to employees.

Licensing Requirement

The Safe Hotels Act requires hotel operators to have a license to operate or continue operating a hotel and prohibits the operation of hotels without a validly displayed license. The licensing application must demonstrate an operator’s ability to satisfy the requirements of the Act, including the staffing, safety, cleanliness, direct employment, and panic button requirements discussed below.

The Safe Hotels Act permits unionized hotels to show compliance with these requirements by showing the hotel is party to a collective bargaining agreement that expressly incorporates the Act’s requirements. Hotels with such union agreements are effectively exempted from demonstrating compliance with the licensing conditions for a period of 10 years or the duration of the collective bargaining agreement, whichever is longer, unless the agreement is modified to remove incorporation of the Act’s requirements. If such a modification is made, the hotel operator must notify the Commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection.

If a licensed hotel operator submits an application for renewal, they may continue operating the hotel until a determination on the renewal. The operator will not be required to cease operations if its license expires while the renewal is pending.

A licensee must also be given 30 days’ notice and an opportunity to cure any issues before their license can be revoked.

Direct Employment of Core Employees

As a condition of a hotel license, the Safe Hotels Act requires hotel owners to employ certain “core employees” directly if the hotel has 100 or more guest rooms. The Act defines “core employee” as any employee whose job classification is related to housekeeping, front desk, or front service at a hotel, and provides several examples of core and non-core job classifications. For hotel owners, the transition to being the direct employer of these core employees may be the most significant change required by the Act.

This requirement means that hotels may no longer use contractors, subcontractors, or staffing agencies to perform work related to housekeeping, front desk, or front service. All workers who perform such roles must be directly employed by the hotel owner.

In addition to the exception for small hotels, the Act provides two other limitations on the direct staffing requirement. First, staffing contracts that were executed prior to the effective date of the law may remain in effect if the contracts provide for termination by a date certain. Second, a hotel owner need not directly employ core employees if the owner retains a single hotel operator to manage all hotel operations involving core employees, in which case the hotel operator must be the direct employer of the core employees.

No exceptions in the Act would permit temporary or other staffing, and it is unclear if the Department of Consumer Affairs and Worker Protection will adopt a flexible approach when enforcing the provisions of the Act.

Service and Staffing Requirements

The Safe Hotels Act imposes a number of requirements related to promoting safety, preventing human trafficking, and maintaining cleanliness. Specifically:

• All core employees must be provided with human trafficking recognition training. A new core employee must be provided such training within 60 days of employment.
• Hotel operators must provide continuous front desk staffing by having at least one employee scheduled to provide front desk services.
• During overnight shifts, hotel operators may schedule a security guard rather than front desk staff to provide coverage, so long as the security guard is able to assist guests and has undergone human trafficking recognition training.
• Hotels with more than 400 guest rooms must have at least one security guard on schedule to provide continuous coverage to the hotel premises.
• Hotel operators must maintain cleanliness of guest rooms, sanitary facilities, and hotel common areas, including:
  
  • Providing every guest room with clean towels, sheets, and pillowcases prior to occupancy by a new guest;
  • Replacing towels, sheets, and pillowcases of an occupied guest room upon request by a guest; and
  • Cleaning an occupied guest room and removing trash daily, unless a guest affirmatively declines such cleaning and trash removal, without imposing a daily room cleaning fee or providing any discount or incentive to forgo daily room cleaning.
• Short-duration stays (bookings of less than four hours) are prohibited, except for hotels within one mile of either LaGuardia Airport or John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Panic Buttons

Hotel operators must provide panic buttons to core employees whose duties involve entering occupied guest rooms, at no cost to the employee. The panic button must allow the employee to alert a security guard or other appropriate on-site person available to provide immediate on-scene assistance that the employee is in danger and provide their location to the person from whom assistance is requested.

Earlier this year, a law was passed in New York State which will, starting in 2027, require large retail employers to provide employees with panic buttons as well. This attention to panic buttons may be the start of a legislative trend.

Anti-Retaliation Provision

The Act also includes an anti-retaliation provision. Employees are protected from retaliation for (1) disclosing or threatening to disclose to a supervisor or public body any specific activity, policy, or practice of the hotel operator that the employee reasonably and in good faith believes violates the Act or poses a substantial and specific danger to the public health or safety; (2) providing information to, or testifying before, any public body conducting an investigation, hearing, or inquiry into any such activity, policy, or practice of the hotel operator; or (3) objecting to, or refusing to participate in any such activity, policy, or practice provided that the employee also has a reasonable, good-faith belief that the activity, policy, or practice subjects the employee to unusually dangerous conditions that are not normally part of such employee’s job.

The Act permits employees to bring a civil action and seek compensatory, injunctive, and declaratory relief, as well as reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs. Such an action must be initiated within six months from when the employee knew or reasonably should have known about the alleged violation. Upon filing the action, the employee is required to provide notice of the action to the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, but failure to do so will not adversely affect their legal claim.

Effective Date

The Safe Hotels Act is slated to take effect on May 3, 2025.

With regard to the prohibition on indirectly employing “core employees,” the Act provides for an exception for existing agreements prior to the effective date of the Act. The indirect employment of “core employees” is permitted by the Act provided there is a “date certain” for the termination of the contract. Agreements for the indirect employment of core employees entered into after May 3, 2025, are prohibited after October 30, 2025. Effective immediately, the Act prohibits hotels from entering into agreements that provide less than continuous front desk coverage.  

Controversy

The Safe Hotels Act has generated controversy, with staunch opposition from some industry groups and hotel owners contending that the Act’s provisions would impose significant burdens on employers without a tangible connection to safety. In particular, there are concerns that the Act includes provisions unrelated to safety that are instead aimed at encouraging unionization.¹

Before the Act’s passage, a compromise among certain stakeholders exempted small hotels from the direct employment requirement and cleared way for the passage of the Act. While this exemption provides relief to small hotels, for others it raises questions about the true purposes behind the Act, as it is not immediately apparent why direct employment of core employees could be considered a necessary safety measure for larger hotels, but not for small hotels.

It is yet to be seen whether the NYC Safe Hotels Act will face legal challenges. Littler will continue to track these developments.