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Episode 4: How The Hospitality Industry Can Practically Fight Human Trafficking
91 Plays1 year ago
Florida is a playground for the rest of the world, and in today’s conversation, we hear how human trafficking can be stamped out at our hotels and restaurants with Geoff Luebkemann from the Florida Restaurants and Lodging Association.
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Topic
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome back. This is another podcast from the Florida Alliance to End Human Trafficking. I'm Erin Collins, the executive director. Today, my co-host is Alan Wilkett, retired corporal with the Pasco County Sheriff's Office and board member of the Florida Alliance. Thanks, Alan, for joining me. What a pleasure it is to be here, to do another episode to hear more about what the great state of Florida is doing along with our business partners to end human trafficking in the state of Florida.
Hospitality Industry's Role Against Trafficking
00:00:34
Speaker
Well, today we'll hear more about what the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association is doing to train its members and the broader hospitality industry. Alan, I know in your law enforcement career, you were in a lot of different partnerships.
00:00:50
Speaker
with folks that did compliance and were the regulators, whether it was from the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation or other entities that were overseeing some of their compliance. Can you share some of these examples? The industry plays such a huge role, whether you're coming to the state of Florida for that large scale event or the theme park, a music event, the beaches, or the bed and breakfast in a small town around our state.
00:01:18
Speaker
people are going into restaurants, motels, and various lodging establishments all the time. That's why it's so wonderful to hear and learn all about what FRLA is doing with the industry. But can you share a little bit more about your experience in working with some of these regulators as they work towards compliance?
00:01:38
Speaker
Sure. When this legislation was created that created the Florida Alliance to End Human Trafficking, one of the industries that was really in view was the hotel industry. Recognizing that with large-scale events, obviously the hotel industry, tourism broadly,
00:01:57
Speaker
but the hotel industry and those that surround that, the restaurants and things of that nature, are critically important when it comes to ending the human trafficking that's going on around those large-scale events, but not just around large-scale events, but from day-to-day operations, the vital role that lodging in particular, because that's temporary housing.
00:02:18
Speaker
and how the traffickers had used that space, that temporary housing, to be able to execute their criminal activity. Recognizing that that's a critical industry, that was one of the industries that was in view with the creation of that legislation. What's happened with FRLA, and they've been just wonderful in embracing
00:02:40
Speaker
Just the thought of that, but also historically, looking at it and saying, you know what, we're going to take this in a proactive way, and we're going to train our industry to make sure that the appropriate trained observers are in those places to disrupt that human trafficking, that activity from happening in our places of establishment.
00:03:04
Speaker
The beauty of that kind of training is it doesn't just bring trained observers into that space. But now that trained observer moves throughout the community at large. So it has kind of a double effect. And this this episode is going to really highlight the proactive measures that this industry is taking to end human trafficking here in the state of Florida and beyond. Well, let's learn more from Jeff Luebkemann with the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association.
00:03:32
Speaker
Joining us today is Jeff Lubkeman with the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association. Jeff serves as a senior vice president of education and training and with a recent new hat, the interim senior vice president of membership and corporate relations. Thanks for joining us, Jeff. Good morning, Erin. It's great to be with you. You have such an interesting blend of hospitality industry, public sector and trade association leadership experience. How did you get to the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association?
Jeff Luebkemann's Career and FRLA's Mission
00:04:00
Speaker
So I guess the short answer is,
00:04:02
Speaker
I was a 16 year old intern in high school at the Capitol and I was also working in restaurants and looking back over a now 45 year career, I made choices consciously or otherwise that landed me in my dream job. So I get to be involved in the political process, defending and advocating for an industry that I absolutely love and was very good to me.
00:04:30
Speaker
as a younger person. And so I tell people all the time and I'll say it on this public forum, I'm scared somebody's going to find out that I have the greatest job in the world and take it away from me. Now, that's wonderful. Jeff, can you tell me a little bit more about the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association and how you work with the industry? Absolutely. So you mentioned my my career has kind of an interesting blend. I started in industry. I was in
00:04:57
Speaker
food and beverage operations for 16 years, and then had the good fortune to head the regulatory authority under the Governor Jeb Bush administration, where I was the top regulator for food and lodging statewide, which those two experience buckets were a natural fit for the Florida Restaurant Lodging Association. And I had the good fortune to be invited here in 2006
00:05:24
Speaker
And quite simply, FROA has three primary legs to its mission, and that is protect, promote, and educate our industry. Typically, the trade association, the most visible aspect typically is the advocacy. It's a business community joining together to unify their voices and advocate for conditions that are conducive to business.
00:05:51
Speaker
And that doesn't always mean saying no to regulation. For instance, in the case of required human trafficking training, we came along with that. We thought it was a good thing that would protect the industry, save lives, and prevent devastation. And so that, in a nutshell, is what FRLA does. We advocate on behalf of the industry. We protect its ability to operate. And we educate our members.
00:06:21
Speaker
the human trafficking awareness efforts that we have advanced over the last four or five years fall into that leg of our mission. Such an interesting journey. As we know, human trafficking is an issue that impacts communities throughout the globe and unfortunately here in the state of Florida, human trafficking is the use of force, fraud, or coercion for some commercial sex act.
00:06:47
Speaker
or Labor Act. The hospitality industry and the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association has really been at the forefront prior to laws changing in the state of Florida to require certain industries to take annual training. Why do you think it's been so important for the industry to implement and require their employees to take training? And how has it been received by the industry since you all implemented?
00:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, so thank you for pointing that out. FROA actually developed its own human trafficking awareness training that we put up online in 2018 prior to the mandation of training in our industry in 2019. And we made it available free of charge at that time to encourage broad adoption. And the simple answer to your question about why is because it's the right thing to do.
00:07:46
Speaker
And that is kind of a trope and an easy thing to say, but it truly is. It's very inexpensive to do this. And the upside, the positive impact that an hourly employee in a lodging establishment can have on literally saving a life, it really is a very easy decision. Additionally, in addition to
00:08:16
Speaker
it being the right thing to do, there's business protection involved. If an inspired business leader takes this seriously, they're gonna protect their business as well as the jobs they create. So there is no downside to this. And to the second part of your question, it's been very well received. Our members tend to be leaders in their fields and tend to be white hat people
00:08:44
Speaker
early adopters of best practices that are good for their communities and good for business. And this falls squarely into that category. I think it's fascinating, you know, coming from, you coming from the public sector, having worked with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation in that, you know, regulator compliance role. How do you think that aids you with regards to the current role you play in implementing, you know, training and awareness for the industry?
00:09:14
Speaker
That's a great question. And I do have the benefit of having been on both sides of this equation, the regulator and regulated community relationship. So for a lot of people that spend their careers only in a particular industry, it can be easy to view a regulator as the enemy. One of the missions that we were tasked with when I arrived at DBPR was to
00:09:44
Speaker
be more of a partner with the industry. For example, on food safety inspections, an inspector is typically in a licensee maybe a couple of hours a year. So to leverage that time that they're on site at a lodging business or a food business to be the partner, to be the educator, and to get the business community to come along and comply with the regulations on a voluntary basis
00:10:14
Speaker
is much more effective than attempting to force them to. So then combining the regulatory aspect with the knowledge of being an industry operator, it creates a real opportunity for us to characterize the regulator, not as the enemy, but our partner in adopting and executing best practices, which in the case of
00:10:43
Speaker
of this particular issue, human trafficking awareness, it is clearly a best practice. It saves lives, it saves businesses and jobs, and inspired business leaders.
00:10:54
Speaker
will take this seriously every shift, every day that they work in their operations. So interesting. I'm sure most people know about your prior role, as you mentioned, or part of it with food safety and regulation when they open up their local newspapers sometimes and see those inspection reports and whether their favorite place did well or not so much.
00:11:20
Speaker
That's so interesting. As we know, the human trafficking requirement for public lodging establishments to provide annual training changed in 2019, as you mentioned, and that requires these establishments to offer training to employees
00:11:38
Speaker
who perform certain duties, including housekeeping and rental units, working at the front desk or reception area, valets, maintenance staff, roles of that nature. And that law wanted to affect January 1st of 2021. Can you talk a little bit more about the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association training, how you provide it, the things that you do on an ongoing basis? Because as you mentioned, your training was implemented the year prior,
00:12:08
Speaker
And it's so important because our partners in the hospitality and lodging industry are hundreds of thousands of people, if not more, I'm sure you can provide the stats on that, in communities across our state. So can you tell us a little bit more about your training? Of course.
Training Impact and Awareness Strategies
00:12:27
Speaker
And to your point, prior to the pandemic, and we've been through some rocky times between a pandemic and some hurricanes,
00:12:36
Speaker
Our employee base across all hospitality type businesses is somewhere between 1.2 and 1.4 million people. So in a state of around 20, 21 million people, that's a pretty significant chunk. And leveraging their daily activities and their businesses with the awareness of human trafficking is just so, so important to being able to recognize
00:13:05
Speaker
and stop this horrible crime. So some of the things that we've done over the last couple of years, the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association is organized on a chapter format. So we have 15 chapters around the state that are comprised of local business leaders. And then they each have a board of directors at the local level. And that feeds into a statewide
00:13:33
Speaker
board of directors at the state level. And those local chapters meet on a regular basis and are continually providing ongoing education, support, awareness of all manner of things that it takes to run a food or lodging business. And so we've injected human trafficking awareness into that format. So those folks are regional directors that operate the chapters, actually foster great relationships
00:14:03
Speaker
with NGOs like yours at the local level, the community of support organizations, folks that are trying to get the trafficked survivor back on their feet and living a healthy and productive life. We partner with those people all around the state. At the state level, we've had some really interesting and effective events
00:14:29
Speaker
Uh, for example, um, we had back-to-back Super Bowls in our state in 2020 and in 2021. And, um, we partnered with the local, um, anti-trafficking and trafficking awareness communities in both Miami and Tampa in 2020 and 2021 along with law enforcement and media to create awareness on the front end, hopefully prevent some of this.
00:14:56
Speaker
create awareness during the event, hopefully recognizing it if we see it, and then feeding that information, including local hotline numbers that law enforcement could react to in real time to hopefully catch the bad guys and put them where they belong. So we had some really strong momentum as we entered the compliance dates in 2020 and 2021, ran
00:15:24
Speaker
into the buzzsaw of the pandemic, and we lost a little momentum there, but we are looking forward to, as you well know, January is Human Trafficking Awareness Month each year, and we're looking forward to re-energizing our efforts to, again, keep that awareness front of mind for all of our hourly teammates, as well as our business leaders in the food and lodging industries.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, you mentioned a few great points, but the one that always sticks out to me, and we emphasize as well at the Florida Lions, is those partnerships and collaborations. As you know, law enforcement and service providers can't do the good work that they do without help from the community. And the industry, your industry is such a vital part to those communities throughout the state. You mentioned that the training has been well received.
00:16:22
Speaker
But what would you tell, you know, an operator, an owner who says and kind of gives pushback to, well, you know, my employees are already overworked and there's, you know, thankfully we're in such a great place in our state where people are coming by the millions from all different parts of the globe.
00:16:43
Speaker
and partners like Visit Florida and others, local folks are doing great work to market and let potential visitors around the globe know all that Florida has to offer. So it's great that all these different operators and establishments are busy. And that is definitely apparent as I travel the state and I know you do as well. But what would you tell someone who is resistant to
00:17:11
Speaker
make sure that their employees are compliant. We know that it's just an annual, at least a minimum, the annual hour training. What would you tell someone to encourage them to make sure that they are compliant? Yeah, great question. And as is typical of any sort of compliance or regulatory framework, there's a group of people that I call the
00:17:39
Speaker
the cannots or the will nots. The cannots are those that may be under-resourced, struggle with staffing. They're just trying to survive every day. And unfortunately, a particular compliance issue may fall through the cracks. The will nots, on the other hand, are those that say, I'm not going to do this until you make me. And so classic example, carrots and sticks. For the conscientious operator,
00:18:09
Speaker
This is such a white hat thing to do, and it really is not costly. There are, in addition to our training that's available for a minimal charge now, we're not trying to make any money on it, we're just recovering basically our hosting service on the internet.
Moral and Business Perspectives on Compliance
00:18:26
Speaker
But there are scads of free trainings available that are all approved by DBPR to meet this regulatory requirement. There literally are scores and scores of these.
00:18:37
Speaker
So the budget or economic argument that it's onerous is just not there. And so for the white hat, for the carrot, it's a great thing to do to be a business leader and show compassion for our fellow humans. On the stick side, failure to comply with this can incur a fine of up to $2,000 per day.
00:19:07
Speaker
That's a pretty significant stick. Recently, it was pointed out to me that over 14,000 citations were written for failure to be in compliance with this particular law on the kind of the initial wave of compliance, which is why I attribute that large number. I think there was a lot of awareness that was created in the industry that, oh, by the way, you do have this thing you must do. And so the regulator took an educational approach
00:19:37
Speaker
And I'm pleased to say that of those citations written, the regulator was able to achieve 100% compliance in the regulated community. So the first objective in a regulatory effort is to educate the regulated population, let them know that they have this obligation. And then the second phase to that is to check and see, are they complying?
00:20:06
Speaker
And so upon being notified of this thing, our industry came along and embraced it. And so for those, if there's an operator out there that has decided this is too expensive, or for whatever reason, they may be resistant, then there's the stick. And the cost of just one day at $2,000 a day in fines far surpasses any cost that they would have.
00:20:36
Speaker
in gaining compliance and training their staff. So there's a carrot and a stick. I'm pleased to say our membership, again, that tend to be forward-thinking business leaders, early adopters of best practices, we've heard nothing but positive things out of this. And the two primary, there's a number of things that you have to do to achieve compliance with this. Training is part of it, but really at the end of the day,
00:21:05
Speaker
It's an inspired business leader that's leading their teams on an everyday basis, reminding their folks of what to be looking out for. And most importantly, having a policy of what to do if one of their team may see something. That could end badly if there's not planning involved in this, because some of these people are violent, vicious human beings. And if we don't have a plan,
00:21:33
Speaker
on what to do if we see this in one of our businesses, we could end up putting our teammates at risk. So having a plan, knowing who's going to make the call to either local law enforcement or the national hotline, and then just walking that walk every day, reminding our people to be vigilant and on the lookout. And this is, as you well know, Aaron, this is not a matter that is relegated to a certain category or class of lodging property.
00:22:03
Speaker
This happens at all price points, all quality levels. And so we as an industry just have to accept some responsibility for taking care of our fellow human beings and being on the lookout every day, every shift.
00:22:17
Speaker
Yeah, such great, great points. You mentioned training the employees because we want to keep everyone safe in our workforce. Can you talk about some of those, maybe the characteristics? As we know, some of the potential signs and indicators can be both behavioral or physical. If someone's not staying in your hotel or motel or your establishment for a longer period of time, and we don't know this individual before,
00:22:47
Speaker
We might not know some of those longer-term behavioral cues, but for some of the physical and or maybe the limited interactions that hotel staff does have with potential victims of human trafficking, can you tell us what you include in your training for people to spot and to look out for? Yeah, absolutely. One of the things I love about this particular training is
00:23:15
Speaker
It is not particularly complicated or technical. Really, it's about awareness. It literally is about being observant as we as managers or housekeepers or valet or front desk personnel. It's just about being aware if something just doesn't look right and then running through a mental list of questions about why that thing may not look right. Is this
00:23:45
Speaker
person that's presenting at a front desk, are eyes cast downward? Are they not making eye contact? Do they appear very deferential to the person they're with? Is there a big age disparity between the person they're with? We used to say cash transactions was kind of a red flag. Most of the industry doesn't accept cash anymore.
00:24:12
Speaker
Um, that one kind of goes out the window, but, but really, um, you know, someone that's checking in that has little or no, uh, luggage or possessions with them. Um, and then, uh, beyond the, the, the, the check-in and registration process, um, being aware of what's going on with that room. Uh, does somebody have a, a do not disturb sign hung on that door for days and days at a time and has requested no housekeeping. Um, or is there a noticeable
00:24:43
Speaker
amount of foot traffic to a particular room. So again, not highly technical things. It's just looking for these red flags and then stop it for a moment to run through a mental checklist and say, what is it about this that just doesn't look right? And then knowing what your property policy is, certainly in most properties, the person to make the decision on who to call, whether it's law enforcement,
00:25:11
Speaker
or the national hotline. That's typically going to be a management decision, but every hourly employee that sees this thing that may look unusual or odd needs to know what do I do next. And again, not highly technical. It's known what it, something looks a little out of order. What do I do next? I bring it to my manager and then hopefully good things happen after that.
00:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, no, definitely great reminders for folks and things that you remind people that take your training. The other one that we hear a lot too is individuals who don't want to provide some form of identification. We all check into properties.
00:25:52
Speaker
standard operating procedure. You have to provide your driver's license or passport or some other form of legal ID, kind of unheard of if you don't, red flags. But those signs and potential characteristics are things that I think we know. And again, to your point that it's non-technical, we all know kind of something
00:26:14
Speaker
is a miss when we listen to our gut or we kind of listen to that voice inside, if you will. But I think a lot of people, especially when you're traveling, whether for work or play, you're kind of in your own little zone or bubble. No one wants to get involved. No one wants to be accused of doing something, and especially kind of where we are in our world right now.
00:26:39
Speaker
There are people that are maybe a little on edge or just getting back out into travel and might miss those signs, but they know that something doesn't feel right but don't want to do anything. I think it's so important that we do listen to our gut instinct, especially
00:27:01
Speaker
for those who are in our hospitality and tourism industry because they have the opportunity and the situational awareness to be interacting with thousands of people in a given time period. That's why training is so important. You raise a great point on the societal reluctance to get involved. One of the things that makes the national hotline so strong
00:27:29
Speaker
is that there's no penalty for a false alarm. And the person that's, whether it's another patron in a business that's making a call to the hotline or whether it's a manager following their house procedure on making a call to the hotline, there's no penalty for being wrong. It's much better to err on the side of caution and then let the experts
00:27:57
Speaker
at the national hotline and local law enforcement figure out the next steps. And folks can engage with that hotline and then be done. They have no further involvement. So that kind of reluctance to get engaged or be involved
00:28:15
Speaker
It's not going to result in anything other than a phone call if that's what they want to do. Yeah, no, definitely. I say it all the time and folks that serve in our leadership and that we work with on educational and awareness events and trainings.
00:28:32
Speaker
in law enforcement say, we want people to call, you know, you can do it anonymously, you can call the national hotline, the National Human Trafficking hotline, which we know is 888-373-888, or you can text befree to 233-733. Or if you think someone's in immediate danger calling 911, but law enforcement can't do
00:28:56
Speaker
the work that they do to investigate, to identify a potential victim, to prevent something from continuing or stopping something from happening if they don't have those tips. And one of the folks on our board likes to call it the trained observer. We might have information, but not context.
00:29:15
Speaker
And it's so vital, especially for those in your industry, because they do have context. They are the ones that are going behind that hotel lodging establishment room door, or they're going into the kitchen where as a patron, we come in, we're having our meal. We don't know what's going on behind the doors when the servers and the people who are working in the restaurant are behind those doors. And so the training and everything that you offer
00:29:45
Speaker
to your members and to the industry is so key in hopefully preventing this crime one day. Do you think that the emphasis with the training on the industry has led to increased tips to various hotlines or to law enforcement? And if so, are there any stories that you can share? Yeah, I don't have statistics on that. But I just have to think that
00:30:15
Speaker
in a state this big with an industry this big, the more awareness that we inject into our daily operations is just gonna create positive outcomes for everybody. One of the things that doesn't get near the attention that sex trafficking gets is labor trafficking. And certainly the food service industry is very,
00:30:43
Speaker
risk exposed to that, whether it be contracted cleanup crews, landscaping crews, things of that nature. And so the training really can broaden the participants horizons in terms of understanding all the different ways that a human being can be exploited. I know you hear this all the time. It's not like the movie Taken, where it's a James Bond plot kind of thing.
00:31:12
Speaker
It's just everyday stuff with human beings being taken advantage of. And by participating in the training, we really can broaden that participant's understanding of how that happens and again, hopefully lead to them raising their hand. Not quite in a traffic sense, but we had at a recent board meeting, we recognized a server in a restaurant who noticed a little boy that
00:31:42
Speaker
something didn't seem right. His eyes downcast very deferential. He was not allowed to eat. Um, and this server managed to create a little sign and hold it up where only this little boy could see. And it said, do you need help? And, um, the, the, the child either didn't respond or, or minimally responded in a, in a, in a, no, I don't need help manner. The server didn't take that note for an answer and asked again,
00:32:12
Speaker
And, uh, subsequently the little boy was able to indicate he needed help fast forward 18 months. Uh, and just recently, um, a stepfather to this child was sentenced to multiple life terms for abusing this young man in horrible ways. I won't go into, but it was, it was this server that just took a moment to say, this doesn't look right. What can I do?
00:32:39
Speaker
to help, and she saved a life. There's no doubt. As we know, the law requiring public lodging establishments to provide annual training to its employees was passed in 2019 and implemented into law January 1st of 2021.
Legislative Requirements and Major Events Focus
00:32:57
Speaker
And some of that, as we've discussed, includes the active participation from the employees, but then also from a resources and material standpoint,
00:33:06
Speaker
to be able to post public awareness information signs. We all travel around the state, go through different ports of entry, whether we're on the turnpike or arrest area, and you can't miss those signs with the national hotline number or law enforcement 911 and potential characteristics and signs of human trafficking. So these establishments are required to
00:33:32
Speaker
have awareness signs and their establishments that are at least a certain size requirement in addition to the training. But Jeff, can you talk about how you aid your members with implementing some of those other things in addition to the training? Yeah, really it's about talking about it and continually talking about it. I've mentioned that we kind of all lost a couple of years there to a pandemic and
00:34:01
Speaker
And now we're struggling with hurricanes and potential economic wins. But really, one of the things that FRLA brings to its members is, I won't say a conscience because we tend to have, again, members that are highly engaged in their local communities that want to be leaders and early adopters of best practices. But just as a matter of what we do on a daily basis,
00:34:30
Speaker
making this part of our message to our members, our potential members and the business community at large to continually talk about this in terms of a compliance issue and then offering resources. As I mentioned, we have training available on our website. We have the required signage available to download. And so just making sure that folks know that those tools are available is one of the things that we provide.
00:35:00
Speaker
As we know, Florida hosts large-scale events annually throughout our state, but we know that, unfortunately, human trafficking happens year-round when those events aren't taking place. Does your outreach with industry and with your members, does it change before some of these big events like the Super Bowl that come to town? Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Sure.
00:35:29
Speaker
The opportunity that a big high profile event presents is an opportunity to prevent this behavior from starting. One of the one of the target audiences that we really honed in on, especially for the Miami Super Bowl, was the was on the demand side for for trafficked human beings and reminding people what can happen to them.
00:35:58
Speaker
if they are engaged in this behavior. So maybe changing some minds on people that for whatever reason think they can misbehave when they leave their homes and go to a different city. So really honing in on that side of the equation to remind people that this is a devastating abuse of human beings. And oh, by the way, you can go to jail for participating in it.
00:36:28
Speaker
maybe we can scrape some demand off in that sense. So that's the kind of thing that these high-profile events bring. They also bring an urgency. There's a date that this thing is going to happen, and it really helps kind of create some cohesion between, say, FRLA as a state organization, our local chapters, and then local community organizations that may only exist in a municipality or a region.
00:36:57
Speaker
So it really helps us develop those relationships, be better partners with each other, with some urgency because there's a date coming. Then on the kind of everyday opportunity that we have is the stuff doesn't go away. High profile events that bring lots of special international traffic have the opportunity to increase the demand and increase the presence.
Ongoing Efforts Beyond Major Events
00:37:27
Speaker
but it never goes away under normal conditions. So again, continuing to talk about it, raise awareness, make sure that we're, and we don't just focus on our members. We focus on the industry at large to try and create awareness and make sure that we are characterized as an industry, as good neighbors, good community partners and businesses with consciences.
00:37:51
Speaker
I think that's so important. The work might be recognized by the average citizen before some of these events, but the proactive work that the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, along with Florida Lions and countless other organizations and nonprofits who are working to increase awareness about human trafficking
00:38:15
Speaker
goes on 365, you know, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. And it's so great that, you know, FRLA has such a long standing history in and being proactive, and providing resources and training to its members. Because you make up, you know, as you cited that statistics, such a large part portion of the workforce. Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's
00:38:43
Speaker
We're all busy. Nobody doesn't have too little to do each day. But if we pause for a moment and think about how we can literally save a life, literally change the trajectory of someone's life, this is a pretty easy decision.
00:39:02
Speaker
I think it's so important that you all are focusing on the education side from both sex trafficking, signs and characteristics, but also labor trafficking because of the members of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association. I think that kind of stereotypically
00:39:20
Speaker
people see more headlines about sex trafficking. And they, you know, sometimes, you know, obviously, when they involve a minor, you know, people become more aware and rage, they want to be able to get engaged to do something. But, you know, statistics from the International Labor Organization, human traffic, or excuse me, labor trafficking is a much larger issue. But the statistics
00:39:46
Speaker
you know, are severely underreported, so it's hard to specifically quantify. You know, how do you, you know, throughout the year, you know, work with your members to have that, provide that ongoing training and awareness, you know, because, again, the issue is so important. And hopefully, you know, we don't see those headlines in the state of Florida. Yeah, that's a great question, Aaron. The labor aspect of this isn't as flashy.
00:40:13
Speaker
It doesn't, as you point out, enrage people, but the sheer volume is huge compared to sex trafficking. And so one of the things that we do with our members is we, while food service operations are not required to take any sort of mandated training, we encourage everybody in hospitality and on the lodging side, not just those positions that are kind of
00:40:42
Speaker
um, enumerated in statute, but really all of our teams in food and lodging, we encourage them to take the training and to really, to make it part of their operational culture and not just check the box once a year because the law makes me, but rather enculturated. You've got that inspired business leader, manager, supervisor, that's talking about this every shift every day, um, and really making it part of their daily operation.
00:41:12
Speaker
That level of engagement and awareness is what is going to change people's lives when we can.
00:41:18
Speaker
help get them out of these horrible situations. Now, I agree. Everyone, you know, has family members that they want to protect. So the small investment of your time to take that, you know, hour, hourish long training once a year seems very small in comparison to the role that you could potentially play in saving
Conclusion and Appreciation
00:41:38
Speaker
a life. So I agree. Jeff Lube come in with the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks, Erin. It's been a pleasure. You guys do great work.
00:41:47
Speaker
We're huge fans. Keep up the good fight. Such an interesting conversation, Alan, that I had with Jeff. He has been on both sides of increasing awareness about this important issue as a regulator with DBPR and then now serving for many years with FRLA. Such an interesting perspective. What are some of the things that you learned from Jeff?
00:42:13
Speaker
Well, first of all, I think it was that perspective you just mentioned about from being the regulator to being the regulated. Look, nobody likes regulations. Businesses like regulations, the community at large, you know, regulations are somewhat inhibited. So I think there's a kind of a natural thing about being quote unquote regulated. However, in this particular case, when it comes to human trafficking, you saw
00:42:40
Speaker
Almost the enthusiasm that was exhibited to say look we understand we recognize that we need this this training we need this awareness we need these mechanisms in place to make sure that we're helping those who are the most vulnerable that we're making sure that we're disrupting that that human trafficking activity and so this industry has said let's get proactive.
00:43:05
Speaker
Let's not just quote-unquote be regulated, but let's get proactive in the space. Regulation at that point in time is not just inhibited, it's actually preventative. That's exactly where they're at. They're in a proactive space where they're being preventative by doing the training and joining in this effort to make sure that human trafficking does not thrive in their industry.
00:43:27
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. I think the other thing that it was interesting to learn, the work that they're doing year round. As we know, unfortunately, human trafficking takes place, whether there's a big event or people come into a theme park. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter. And that they're focused on training their members, working with industry partners is so important. And I think people forget because they just think, oh, goodness,
00:43:55
Speaker
The bad things are only happening when that concert or that sports event comes to town. But as you know so well, that's unfortunately not the case. It happens every single day, every single night, every day of the year. It doesn't know holidays. It doesn't know time off. There is no time off when it comes to human trafficking. There is no holiday.
00:44:20
Speaker
when it comes to human trafficking so the restaurant and lodging association has said look this is a year-round operation so therefore our training needs to be year-round so that we can counteract the effects of human trafficking in our communities and that is the exact approach that needs to be taken by every entity takes no time off so we don't take any time off when it comes to observing this criminal activity and reporting it to the appropriate places.
00:44:46
Speaker
Right, the other thing I found interesting, talking about the variety of their members that the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association has, again, it's not just folks in, you know, motel, hotel, lodging establishments, restaurants, places where, you know, people are going to, you know, have meals. And the importance of, because again,
00:45:10
Speaker
Commercial sexual exploitation gets a lot of talk. It unfortunately makes the headlines and especially when it involves a minor. But labor trafficking, as we know, is a much larger issue, especially globally than commercial sex trafficking.
00:45:26
Speaker
but that training employees that we might not see. So talking about the restaurant workers that are in the kitchen or that we can't see as a patron or someone going to a restaurant. So we might have that kind of funny feeling in our gut that
00:45:43
Speaker
a server or a busboy or a waitress is maybe not acting in a way that you would think from a restaurant perspective. But we don't have, as you know, the context. What's going on in the kitchen? What is being discussed? How is that individual being treated? So I think it's so important that we're focusing on all aspects of human trafficking because some might get
00:46:10
Speaker
and grip the headlines more so than the things that are actually taking place a lot more prevalently in our communities. I think it's incredibly important to recognize what you just said. And that is the fact that these things are being done in these. Everybody needs to eat. Everybody has to sleep.
00:46:27
Speaker
Sometimes that eating and that sleeping takes places in these temporary places, restaurants, and lodging establishments. So having those trained observers. But I think it's also important that sometimes in the hotels and the restaurants, whereas a lot of focus, as you said, goes on the commercial sex trafficking.
00:46:44
Speaker
There's also labor trafficking going on. And many times that labor trafficking is being manifested in restaurants and lodging facilities. And so therefore we have to have that trained observance of not just commercial sex trafficking, but also labor trafficking as well. So having that holistic training model is very important to disrupt this human trafficking.
00:47:07
Speaker
Alan, I want to thank you for serving as my co-host on this episode. This has been another podcast from the Florida Alliance to End Team and Trafficking.