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The Activist Beat with Rose Aguilar, host of Your Call on KALW in San Francisco is a weekly roundup of progressive activism that the mainstream media ignores, undercovers, or misrepresents.

When Dominique Strauss-Kahn walked into a New York City courtroom yesterday to deliver a ‘not guilty’ plea, over 200 female hotel workers greeted him by booing and screaming, “Shame on You!”

Strauss Kahn is the former chief of the International Monetary Fund who is being charged with sexually assaulting and attempting to rape a housekeeper on May 14th in his Softel suite in Manhattan.

Because of the alleged assault, hotel housekeepers from Sacramento, California, to Chicago, Illinois are coming forward with stories about consistent requests for sex, explicit comments, groping, and attempted rape. Hotel unions say the most common incidents involve men answering the door nude, exposing themselves, and offering to pay housekeepers for sex.

Because so many housekeepers are immigrants, many rarely report these incidents to management for fear of losing their jobs or because they don’t think anything will be done about it. Irma, a housekeeper in Phoenix, told the Arizona Republic that she doesn’t report incidents of men answering the door in the nude because it happens so often.

Kathryn Carrington, a retired housekeeper who spent 30 years at the Grand Hyatt in Manhattan, told the New York Times that on several occasions, when she entered a room to clean, she was greeted by a male guest exposing himself. She carried a can opener in case she needed to defend herself.

Housekeepers and union leaders across the country are calling on hotel owners to improve hotel security. It’s gotten so bad, they’re asking for panic buttons. Legislation was recently introduced in the New York State legislature to provide panic buttons to employees to use in case of an emergency.

These stories are getting the attention they deserve in both the national and local media, but it would be nice if reporters would stop using the word ‘maid.’

There is one very important element that most articles have completely missed. In addition to being mistreated by male guests, hotel workers are also being mistreated by management.

Cleaning hotel rooms is a backbreaking thankless job. According to Unite Here, union of workers in the hotel industry, the average salary for housekeepers is between $30-35,000 a year. And most workers don’t receive benefits or healthcare.

Studies show that hotel workers have an injury rate that’s 25 percent higher than all service workers. Housekeepers at some Hyatt hotels are required to clean as many as 30 rooms per day, nearly double what is commonly required.

Hotel workers say most hotels treat them poorly, but they point to the Hyatt as the worst offender. They say the Hyatt should be boycotted because it’s leading the fight against middle class jobs. Like most multi-nationals, the company is not letting its shareholders down. The Hyatt reported that as of June 30, 2010, it had over $1.6 billion in cash.

Over the past few years, over 100,000 hotel workers in more than 900 hotels have demonstrated, picketed, and organized for better wages, affordable health benefits, retirement, immigrant rights, and contracts that protect them from injuries at work.

The Strauss Kahn case was a perfect opportunity for the media to explore these issues, but most coverage has failed to make these important connections.

But the workers have found their voice. And their stories deserve to be heard.

The woman who accused Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her says she’ll tell her story from the witness stand. The next hearing is scheduled for July 18. Strauss-Kahn faces up to 25 years in prison.