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Hotel Workers, Trumka Arrested at Sit-In for Fair Contract |
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More than 100 union members, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and UNITEHERE! President John Wilhelm were arrested at a sit-in demanding justice and a fair contract for San Francisco hotel workers last night. The workers have been without a contract since August.
The sit-in in front of the Hilton San Francisco followed a march by nearly 1,000 members of UNITEHERE! Local 2, other union members and community and political supporters. Says Ingrid Carp, a cook for 29 years at the Hilton:
“We’re determined as ever to win a good contract. It’s wrong for corporations to position themselves to make billions with the coming economic recovery, and expect us to go backward.”
The action is part of a campaign to win fair contracts at several national hotel chains, including Hilton, Hyatt and Starwood. The profitable chains are using the recession as an excuse to demand health care benefit cuts in contract talks with more than 16,000 workers at dozens of hotels in San Francisco, Chicago and other cities.
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At the rally before the march, Trumka told crowd:
“A job is a good job because working people fight to make it one. It doesn’t matter if the job is in a coal mine or a hotel, a classroom or a car wash.
“That’s why the struggle of hotel workers here in San Francisco and across our country is so important. If we don’t protect the wages and benefits and health care of hotel workers no job is safe, no worker is safe no family is safe.”
Tomorrow, Trumka will join workers for a rally and picket in front of the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles. Along with the demand for justice for hotel workers, Trumka is in California this week to spotlight the need for job creation. We’ll have more on that later today.
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Go President Trumka! You make us proud.
Congratulations to the hotel workers and to President Trumka for this direct action struggle. May sit ins spread far and wide to spark the rise of our unions.
Labor must also lead the battle for single payer health care.
The Maine AFL-CIO has called on the National AFL-CIO to hold a single payer summit. Let’s do it!
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org/news_releases/2009-12-10
That’s an example of the international working with the local, which is exactly what people need right now. I know people feel to exausted or stressed out sometimes to help in all these causes for labor, but if people don’t come together on these issues everyone is just a pushpin on a map getting picked off one by one by these corporate reptiles. -And by the way, reccession or not until CEO’s and execs are not making 400 times what everyone else is making they can go…well fill in the blank_____.
I certainly hope that this kind of militancy spreads. The Grand Hyatt is making a farce of labor relations in San Antonio and has the mayor using the police as the Hyatt’s private mercenaries.
The irony is that Mayor Castro got into office with the hard work of union campaign workers and this is the pay back we get!
This is a great start but now we need to have our million member march on Washington DC.The time is now and the people we need are ready to go.JUST SAY THE WORD!
As an Operating Engineer in WY, we support you to the fullest. I am so proud that people are starting to stand up for what is right and never backing down. Until the Hiltons and their management decide to work with you and not against you …I will not be staying at any of their hotels chains!!! UNION YES!
I live in the Kansas City area, but I understand what your saying ChicanoWobbly (BTW great blog name.) What bothers me is how were essentially reliving the guilded era, only more fortified; Police (which have a union the F.O.P.) working against labor, CORPORATE socialism, propaganda campaigns run by media conglomorates. The good thing is (in a way at least) is that people are being pushed off there duffs into seeing what “The Markets” are really about. Even the moderator of a public TV network show (and a former rethguglican candidate for Rhode Island senator predicts populists uprising this year.
It’s always good to see American unions standing up for the legal workforce. But ONLY the legal workforce. That representation, however, should never include illegals. Like it or not, illegals are not only not part of the legal American workforce but they are committing a crime by their very presence in our country.
BTW, does anyone know if our American unions are for or against E-Verify? Right off hand I can’t remember if I’ve seen or heard anything about that. I mean, after all, the unions do have a lot of ‘lobbying power’ right? So who better to lobby for E-Verify? E-Verify protects American workers in a most fundamental way. By ‘weeding out’ those who are not authorized to work in this country. No jobs for illegals hopefully translates to fewer illegals!
By “illegals” I assume you mean illegal employers, since they are the real villains. Major corporations with the help of Chicago-school economists ravage the home economies of previously colonized people and it comes as a surprise (to some) that they would prefer unlawful employment where they can find it to the starvation of themselves and their families. Face it - we are all in this together. The beast we oppose has many faces. This is and ALWAYS has been an illegal employer problem.
No, I’m not talking about the employers. But then you already knew that. If the unions would put their money where their mouths are and truly represent the best interests of America’s workers by ‘persuading’ (better known as lobbying) the government to make E-Verify both permanent and mandatory for ALL employers in this country then what you refer to as ‘illegal’ employers would virtually cease to exist. And who knows, if the illegals could no longer find employment here maybe they’d self deport. And to that grand possibility I shout out a rousing Hallelujah and good riddance!
SeemlessWeb you are dead on with your comment.This argument of blaming the person who needs work to survive as an illegal does not cut it.This would be like blaming the bullets for killing people.
Thank you Mr. Trumka, and all the other folks working so hard for our goals.
I read an op-ed this morning from Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post. He talks about the “still birth” of the progressive movement this last year and the reasons for it. He made an interesting point that we all need to remember — FDR and LBJ were great men, but the sweeping changes they ushered in weren’t merely a function of their own committment. They were pressured by social movements that WOULD NOT LET our elected officials drop the ball. If we want real progressive change from this administration, it’s going to take more direct action like last night’s. Keep up the good fight, folks!
Exactly. And, truth be told, wouldn’t you fight even if you knew you were going to lose? Now, I know we’re going to win, but why in the world would anyone stop fighting?
Not one of us is greater than all of us. Stand up, stand strong and above all, stand upon the principles for which we fought for and won throughout history. As the late Senator Ted Kennedy said the fight goes on….the dream will never die.
Allan B, Darr
Retired, IUOE 302
In the confrontation between the river and the rock; the river always prevails. Not because of strength but, because of “perservance”. I am proud, finally, that workers and the labor leaders are taking a stand. As noted above, perservance will prevail. Never give up; never give in. Food for thought! Do you suppose that, if every single “legal” worker in this country refused and/or did not go to work for an entire week or even a day, this would send the message to corporate and beauacratic cronies in a big way. The stock market crash in the 1920’s would be nothing compared to what impact that stance would have. Proud of you that take a stand. I’m one and will continue to do so no matter what.
Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report
National Edition
Produced by Ken Nash and Mimi Rosenberg
**************************************
Argentina’s Real Labor Movement
With
Marina Kabat, Prof., Argentinean History, Univ. of Buenos Aires;
Coordinator, Working-Class Studies Workshop, Center for the
Study & Investigation of Social Sciences (CEICS)
and
Immanuel Ness, Prof., Brooklyn College, CUNY and
author The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest:
1500 to the Present
The economic collapse in Argentina has created a new labor movement
for dignity and control over the work process and democratization of
their communities. Recently, the Kraft food workers’ insurgent union
successfully fought firings with a strike & plant occupation which received
mass community and labor support despite violent state repression. The
United Education Workers, a militant worker-led union, struck for living
wages, closing all schools in the Buenos Aires region, to resist the
government’s austerity plan. Workers have also shut down the Buenos
Aires subway system, suspended major construction projects & defended
wages against government cutbacks. The piqueteros, unemployed & low-
wage workers movements, are successfully staging mass actions,
including blocking major roads & highways, even as police brutality grows.
They have occupied & taken over factories leading to a national
cooperative movement which has democratized workplaces for more
than a million workers.
*****************
Fighting Unemployment and Poverty:
Evergreen Laundry and Worker Cooperatives in Cleveland Ohio
Produced by the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative
“Something important is happening in Cleveland.” With the opening of the
Evergreen Cooperative Laundry on October 21st – a worker-owned
commercial-scale “green” business based in the Glenville neighborhood,
one of the most severely disinvested areas in Cleveland. Mayor Frank
Jackson called the laundry, “a model for how we can put our people back
to work and rebuild our community.” This new model for economic
development was inspired by the network of worker cooperative in
Mondragon, Spain. It is the first in a network of worker cooperatives that
is being launched in the city by the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
To Download or listen to this 27:11 minute program,
Pacifica Station only can go to http://www.buildingbridgesradio.org
E-Verify is a HOAX! I currently live in Myrtle Beach where this program s being implemented.Has it deterred employers from hiring illegal workers?NO!Heres a question for you:How come that in every state where there is a Rethuglicant Gov. like CAL.TEX.MIS.ALA.FLA.LOU.SC.TENN.just to mention a few,these states have E-VERIFY but illegal labor runs rampant????
Ill answer my own question by saying that the Rethuglicants just use illegal immigration as a wedge issue,used to stir up Labor within their own ranks.Every chance they had when they were in the majority they ignored this issue in favor of more tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the rest of the country