Context of the Study
The study was a collaboration of the Culinary
Workers Union Local 226 (Hotel Employees
and Restaurant Employees Union)
in Las Vegas, the Labor Occupational Health
Program at the University of California,
Berkeley, and the Department of Medicine at
the University of California, San Francisco.
The collaboration was initiated by the union
in 2000 because of its concern about working
conditions for 1 of its largest constituencies,
hotel room cleaners. The project was
presented to the union membership as a
union-sponsored scientific study by the University
of California. The balance between
scientific integrity and union sponsorship was
illustrated by the union leaders’ explicit commitment to accept whatever findings the
study produced.