On January 19, millionaire John Joseph Boswell was a guest at the Mayflower hotel in downtown D.C, where he sexually assaulted a maid in his room. Boswell was in town to celebrate the inauguration of Donald Trump, when he took his celebrations too far by approaching the maid from behind and rubbing her buttocks as she made his bed . While taking advantage of her, his remarks were“This is very nice stuff, I like that!”, according to reports. Incidents like this happen frequently within the hotel industry, however they tend to go unreported by housekeepers because of the fear losing their jobs. The issue became international news when Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexually assaulting a Luxury, New York hotel maid. Six years since the inception of hotels providing panic buttons for maids in New York, more than 30 Washington area hotels have introduced panic buttons under an agreement with Unite Here Local 25. When pressed, the Panic button alerts the hotel security with the maid’s location.

“More than 30 hotels in the Washington area have introduced panic buttons in the past year under an agreement with Unite Here Local 25 “, said John Boardman, the union's executive secretary-treasurer. The agreement was reached in 2012, but it has taken five years to put in place reliable technology, Boardman said. When pressed, the panic buttons send a maid's location to hotel security. Hotels pay for the devices and monitoring systems, which generally cost between $40,000 and $50,000.