UNITEHERE! Reaches Tentative Deals with Hilton Hotels
After many months of bargaining, UNITEHERE! and Hilton Worldwide have reached tentative agreements at hotels in three major markets—Chicago, San Francisco and Honolulu. The tentative agreements cover nearly 4,000 workers.
While terms of the settlements vary in each city, the contracts include wage increases, improved job stability language and reduced workloads for housekeeping staff and others. Significantly, the new contracts also preserve low-cost, high-quality health care and pension benefits for Hilton workers and their families at a time when, nationwide, these employee benefits are being cut.
UNITEHERE! President John Wilhelm said in a statement:
We are pleased to have achieved a fair settlement for all sides—one that allows workers to move forward and share in the robust recovery that the hotel industry is experiencing.
Professionals Make Up Largest Group of Union Members
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Laurie Kennington is one of the emerging faces of unions in the 21st century. A Yale graduate (Class of 2001), she is the new president of UNITEHERE! Local 34, the largest union on the Yale campus.
Kennington, who joined the union right after college, and Local 34, both symbolize the rapid growth of professionals and women among union members. In fact, white-collar workers accounted for 53.9 percent of all union members in 2009. Local 34, which began as a clerical union, has grown to represent 3,400 employees, many of them in Yale’s rapidly growing medical research areas. Before becoming president of the local, Kennington was a lead organizer for the Yale medical research facilities.
The AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees (DPE) reports there are more union members among professional and technical workers than any other occupational group. Last year, more than 5.2 million professional and related workers were union members and more than 5.8 million were represented by unions.
Workers Protest Mistreatment by Hyatt
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Thousands of hotel workers in 15 cities across North America have been taking to the streets today to protest the practices of Hyatt and its billionaire owners—the politically influential Pritzker family.
The hotel industry has rebounded quickly from the recession but hotel workers have not shared in the profits they helped create. Nationwide, more than 115,000 jobs in the hotel industry have been cut since the recession began in 2008, including 46,000 in the first quarter of 2010 alone.
As of March 31, Hyatt reported it had more than $1.3 billion in cash available. Yet Hyatt workers have endured staff cuts, reduced hours, and excessive injury rates. In one stark example, Hyatt fired the entire housekeeping staff from its three Boston-area hotels and replaced them with minimum-wage workers from a subcontracting agency. While many hotel workers live in poverty, the Pritzker family cashed out more than $900 million as part of Hyatt’s initial public offering last November.
L.A. Hotel Worker Rally Caps off Trumka’s California Jobs and Justice Tour
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At a rally last night in front of the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told a cheering crowd of about 1,000 members of UNITEHERE! Local 11 and supporters from the unions of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor:
It’s time to take on the Hyatt Hotel Corporation!
The rally, filled with hundreds of people and chanting drums so loud they echoed off high rise buildings, wrapped up his jobs and hotel worker justice swing through California.
The Hyatt is one of several national hotel chains that are using the recession as an excuse to demand cuts in health care benefits and other concessions in contract talks. In Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago, some, 20,000 UNITEHERE! members since last year have been working without contracts, while contracts for hotel workers in a half dozen other cities are set to expire soon.
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.
UNITE HERE Rejoins AFL-CIO
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The last day of the AFL-CIO Convention opened with a big bang as newly elected AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka stood on stage with UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm to make the dramatic announcement that UNITE HERE is reaffiliating with the federation. The 250,000-member UNITE HERE was one of the unions that left the AFL-CIO in 2005 to form a new federation.
Trumka, who said he developed a special bond with Wilhelm around the struggle for Horse Shoe and Frontier Hotel workers in Las Vegas more than 15 years ago, hailed the reaffiliation, saying:
The solidarity of the American labor movement is about to grow.
It pained me personally when UNITE HERE left this federation four years ago—and I can’t think of a more uplifting way to begin this day than by welcoming UNITE HERE back to our union family as an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.
