UNITE HERE Fighting for Hotel Workers Across Nation

by James Parks, Nov 18, 2009

Hotel workers and their supporters held a candlelight vigil outside the Hyatt Regency Boston last week.

Members of UNITE HERE are walking out and digging in to fight for fair contracts at hotels across the country. Some 650 workers at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco went on strike this morning and will remain out until the first shift on Saturday morning.

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. 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.

UNITE HERE contracts covering some 7,500 workers at 37 hotels in Chicago and 9,000 at 31 San Francisco hotels expired in August. Talks are continuing with the largest employers in each city. The hotel management companies are pressing for contracts that would slash health and retirement benefits and would increase workloads.

Says Francesca Ramos, a 19-year seamstress at the St. Francis:

They just want to use the economy as an excuse to cut back, even though we know they’re making big money.

Says Local 2 President Mike Casey, also in San Francisco:

There has never been a question of whether [the Westin St. Francis] can afford what’s on the table. The question is whether these companies will make a business decision that’s in the best interests of workers, the city and the hotels themselves.

This is the third three-day strike at a San Francisco hotel in as many weeks. Workers previously staged strikes at the Grand Hyatt and the Palace hotels.

Penny Pritzker, who chairs four major corporations, including the parent of the Grand 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.

Meanwhile, contract talks in Chicago have stalled and are far from settlement, union leaders say. “Things have gotten really bad,” Annemarie Strassel, spokeswoman for UNITE HERE Local 1, told the Chicago Tribune.

I think that employers see the bad economy as an opportunity to ram through proposals.

In recent months, the Boston Hyatt 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. Workers in cities around the nation have rallied in support of the fired workers.

For more information on UNITE HERE’s campaign for fair hotel contracts, go to www.unitehere2.org.

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