No Super Bowl Payoff for Hyatt Housekeepers
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In a radio ad airing on Indianapolis-area stations during Super Bowl week, UNITEHERE! reminds listeners one of the first things many young NFL players do after signing a first contract is “buy their mom a house, or build her a new kitchen or let her retire.”
Many NFL players were raised by moms who cleaned houses, cleaned hotels or cleaned both. We all have a special place in our heart for the women of Indianapolis who do that work.
The commercial (click here to listen) to raise awareness about hardworking hotel housekeepers is airing at the same time housekeepers at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis are fighting to keep their jobs and boost their poverty-level pay at a hotel where rates can be more than $1,000 a night for a room during Super Bowl week.
Last month after area hotel workers filed a federal lawsuit alleging wage and hour violations against Hyatt subcontractor Hospitality Staffing Solutions (HSS) and 10 downtown hotels, including the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis, Hyatt announced that it would cut ties with HSS, according to UNITEHERE .
Players Assoc. Says Indiana Should Sack ‘Right to Work’ Bill
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The NFL Players Association (NFLPA) today urged the Indiana state legislature to reject a so-called right to work bill that the union says is a “political ploy designed to destroy basic workers’ rights. It’s not about jobs or rights.”
As Indianapolis proudly prepares to host the Super Bowl, it should be a time to shine in the national spotlight and highlight the hard-working families that make Indiana run instead of launching political attacks on their basic rights.
In a statement released this morning, the NLFPA says, “As NFL players, we know our success on the field comes from working together as a team.”
We’re not just a team of football players—we’re also the fans at games and at home, the employees who work the concession stands and the kids who wear the jerseys of our favorite football heroes. NFL players know what it means to fight for workers’ rights, better pensions and health and safety in the workplace. To win, we have to work together and look out for one another.
Judge Orders NFL Owners to Lift Lockout
In a major win for the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) and a stern rebuke to league owners, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson told owners to lift the lockout they imposed on players March 12.
NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith said “I’m happy for our players and for our fans. Those who love football are the winners.” The NFLPA renounced its status as a union in March order to take legal anti-trust action against the owners’ lockout.
In her 89-page ruling Nelson wrote that the players:
have made a strong showing that allowing the league to continue their “lockout” is presently inflicting and will continue to inflict irreparable harm upon them, particularly when weighed against the lack of any real injury that would be imposed on the NFL by issuing the preliminary injunction. The public interest favors the enforcement of the antitrust laws and their underlying pro-competition policy.
New York Giants defensive lineman Osi Umenyiora, one of 12 player plaintiffs in the anti-trust suit against the NFL, said the ruling:
is a win for the players and for the fans that want to see a full NFL season in 2011. The lockout is bad for everyone and players will continue to fight it. We hope that this will bring us one step closer to playing the game we love. Read the rest of this entry »
Like OPEC, NFL Owners a Cartel of Rich Seeking Even More, Plus New Players’ Website
Just what is behind the National Football League (NFL) owners’ lockout of the players this past weekend when talks for a new collective bargaining agreement broke off? James Surowiecki of The New Yorker writes in this week’s edition:
It’s about very rich businessmen thinking that they should be even richer.
He says that “With the possible exception of the members of OPEC, N.F.L. owners have pretty much the coziest business arrangement imaginable”
They’re effectively members of a cartel—able to limit competition, enhance bargaining power, and hold down costs. Instead of competing against each other for TV money, the owners share it, reducing risk and guaranteeing steady revenue regardless of how well they run their teams. The result of all this was nicely summed up by Richard Walden, head of sports finance at JPMorgan Chase, who said, “I’ve never seen an N.F.L. team lose money.” Read the rest of this entry »
Union Members Generously Give for the Holidays
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Throughout the holiday season, union members have spread more than a sleigh full of holiday cheer, from helping Santa answer kids’ letters, to food and toy drives and reuniting families. Here are just a few of the holiday highlights.
For six years, the Atlantic and Cape May (N.J.) Counties Central Labor Council has brought far-flung families back together with its “Fly Home for the Holidays” program. The council takes requests from area residents who want to fly home two relatives, but need help. Along with the airfare, comes a $500 holiday shopping spree and other goodies.
Says council President Roy Foster:
Being in a labor movement is about meeting and helping people in the community. If we can help in some small way, especially at this time of the year, then we’re fulfilling our mission.
NFLPA’s Smith Gives Solidarity Shout Out to Machinists
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During a recent fan appreciation event in Green Bay, Wis., DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA), told fans the NFLPA has had a long relationship of solidarity with the union movement, especially with the Machinists (IAM). The Players face a lockout next year by owners.
Smith, who was raised in a union family, said he was wearing a jacket from “the fighting Machinists” that day because
not only have they joined us in this fight, but what most people don’t know is that when our union was founded and we couldn’t take care of ourselves, the fighting Machinists took care of us, they gave us an office, they gave us a loan they took care of our football players union when we couldn’t stand on our own two feet.
Earlier this year, several NFLPA players appeared at an IAM conference in Florida in support of NASA workers who were facing layoffs because of the end of the U.S. manned space program. At the event, IAM President Thomas Buffenbarger put it this way: Read the rest of this entry »
AFL-CIO: NFL Lockout Would Hurt Communities
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The Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints kicked off the NFL season in a show of solidarity Thursday night and the AFL-CIO has taken the field in the players’ behalf. In a letter released today, the AFL-CIO’s top leaders warned NFL team owners that locking-out players next season could create significant job losses off the field and cause a “spiraling impact on communities.”
In individual letters to each NFL team owner, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Schuler and AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said football generates hundreds of thousands of jobs in stadiums and in the cities. They said a conservative estimate is that a lockout would cost thousands of jobs and cause more than $140 million in lost revenue in each NFL city.
We strongly urge you to think about the stadium workers, hotel and restaurant workers, and thousands of other working people who support [your team] as dedicated employees and fans.
The owners terminated the collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) a year early, claiming they were losing money. But like other employers, they refused to let the players’ union see the books that showed their financial condition.
NFL Players Kick Off Season in Show of Solidarity
In the words of sportscaster Al Michaels: “Nothing like a labor statement to start a season.”
Last night, right after the national anthem at the kickoff of the NFL season, players for the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints came out on the field holding up their index fingers. But this was not the usual gridiron “We’re Number 1″ bravado. It was a statment by the players that off the field they “stand as one” in collective bargaining talks with the team owners.
Like workers everywhere, the members of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) are facing the possibility of being out of work if owners lock them out next season. So the players who push, block, tackle and generally rough each other up on the field are sending a message to fans and the owners that they will work together off the field to make sure they are treated fairly.
Saints Players Try to Block Avondale Closure
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On the football field they are the Super Bowl champions, but earlier this week, the New Orleans Saints showed they are workers’ champions, too.
At the NFL Players Live community event in the Crescent City, the NFL players joined with the Teamsters, Feed the Children and School of the Legends, the NFL’s online football social community, to distribute food to local families in need.
As part of the program, many of the players wore “Save Avondale Shipyard” T-shirts to show their support for the workers at Avondale shipyard, which is set to close in 2013, putting nearly 5,000 people out of jobs.
Some 40 Avondale workers also showed up to help the players distribute food.
Follow the AFL-CIO Young Workers Summit Live
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We’re just a day away from the first-ever national AFL-CIO Young Workers Summit. More than 400 young workers—including 40 Union Summer interns—will be in Washington, D.C., for the June 10-13 conference.
The union workers and activists under 35 are the men and women who are “Next Up” to lead the union movement. The conference gives them a chance to share their concerns, skills and visions about young people’s role in the union movement and the movement’s future with AFL-CIO leaders.
Organizing and political and community activism and communications, mapping out a blueprint for the union movement’s future, are top items on the agenda. The conference is booked solid, but you still have several ways to take part and keep up with the summit.
