Workers Strike San Francisco’s Grand Hyatt Hotel

by James Parks, Nov 6, 2009

San Francisco hotel workers rallied in September for a fair contract.

Hotel workers began a three-day strike this morning at the Grand Hyatt Union Square in San Francisco. The strike comes two weeks after members of UNITE HERE Local 2 voted by a 92 percent to 8 percent margin to authorize strikes at any of the 31 upscale hotels in San Francisco.

Local 2’s contracts with the luxury hotels expired in June. Since then, the union has been trying to negotiate new agreements. But despite earning record profits over the past five years, the hotels are using the recession as an excuse to demand changes in eligibility for the employees’ health care plan that would eliminate coverage or put it out of reach for many workers.

“This is a limited strike,” said Local 2 President Mike Casey. 

It’s intended to send a clear signal to this corporation that they cannot use a temporary downturn to permanently drive down workers’ living standards.

While demanding workers take concessions, the Pritzker family, which owns the Grand Hyatt, is conducting an initial public stock offering today expected to raise close to $1 billion.

Says Aurolyn Rush, a 13-year telephone operator at the Grand Hyatt:

Hyatt’s cashing out almost a billion dollars for its owners, but at the same time they’re pushing to make health care unaffordable for me and my family? That is unforgivable, and we’re not going to stand for it.

Penny Pritzker, who chairs four major corporations, including Classic Residence by Hyatt, is a vocal opponent of workers’ freedom to form unions, strongly opposing the Employee Free Choice Act.

Earlier this year, Pritzker, who serves on President Obama’s White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board, joined with other billionaires to fight the Employee Free Choice Act. She also served as the Obama campaign’s national finance chairwoman. Click here to learn more about Penny Pritzker.

Hyatt has sought to maximize profits on the backs of workers at its hotels across the country:

• In Boston, Hyatt recently fired all 98 housekeepers at its three nonunion hotels, replacing them with lesser-paid temporary workers with no benefits. Since then, these housekeepers have been engaged in the fight of their lives. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO is leading a march and rally at the Boston Hyatt Regency on Sept. 11 in support of the housekeepers.
• Some 150 workers, union activists and students rallied Oct. 28 at the Indiana Statehouse to show solidarity with workers at three Indianapolis hotels, including the Hyatt Regency. The workers have been trying to form a union at the hotels for year despite a fierce anti-union campaign by management. The Indianapolis workers were joined by members of the nationwide “Hope for Housekeepers” tour. “Hope for Housekeepers” is a movement of women, founded by Hyatt housekeepers to stop the abuse of women in the hotel industry and bring a message of hope to Hyatt housekeepers and women working as housekeepers across the globe.

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