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 .
New Agreement Set for Sodexo Workers Worldwide
Elizabeth Boomer of the AFL-CIO International Affairs Department sends us this report.
Food service giant Sodexo, with 391,000 employees worldwide—including some 18,000 in the United States—and International Union of Food Workers (IUF), have signed an agreement confirming Sodexo’s commitment to respect fundamental rights at work, namely freedom of association and collective bargaining. The IUF includes 336 unions with 12 million members in 120 countries.
Known as an “international framework agreement (IFA),” it provides for a continual and progressive dialogue between Sodexo management, Sodexo employee representatives and the IUF. It is the first of its kind in the industry and IUF General Secretary Ron Oswald says:
This agreement provides a concrete tool to help ensure that Sodexo workers across the world have access to their fundamental rights. Read the rest of this entry »
Calpine Workers Petition for Union Election; Documents Delivered to NLRB in San Francisco
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This is a cross-post from Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245.
Five Calpine employees delivered authorization cards to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in San Francisco on Dec. 1, the latest step in a campaign to gain union representation for workers at Calpine’s power plants in Northern California.
The Calpine employees were joined by about 50 supporters for a brief rally in front of the NLRB on San Francisco’s Market Street. Several Bay Area labor leaders offered words of encouragement to the Calpine organizers.
“We’re not asking for anything in particular. We’re not asking for better wages, better benefits,” said Mike Farmer, a long-time Calpine employee with decades of service in the industry. “What we want is a voice and some representation. We’re asking Calpine to allow us to have a free and fair election.”
Hyatt Seeks to Slash Chicago Workers’ Health Care
Since 2009, more than 1,500 employees of four Hyatt hotels in Chicago have been fighting for a fair contract. Now the company is threatening to strip away their health coverage if they don’t abandon their fight and call off their boycotts.
Represented by UNITEHERE! Local 1, the workers have stood firm on demands to curb subcontracting and ease working conditions for housekeepers—demands met by Hilton and other Chicago hotel employers.
Christian Toro, a Hyatt banquet server, says: Read the rest of this entry »
Live Tweet Chat Explores Benefits of Union Membership for Women
UNITEHERE! and Fem2.0 will hold a Tweet chat (#unionwomen) Wednesday from 2 p.m.–3 p.m. EDT to talk about the unique role women play in the union movement and the benefits of union membership for women.
Nafissatou Diallo, the housekeeper who accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of assaulting her, is just one of the millions of women across the country who are subjected to dangerous work environments every day. They face abuse by their clients and customers, are forced to work under brutal conditions and often suffer permanent injuries.
Diallo is also one of the millions of women across the country who are members of labor unions—an affiliation that can offer protection to women like her in speaking out when they face such abuse in the workplace.
Taking part in the chat will be Annemarie Strassel from UNITEHERE! and Janel Charles, a housekeeper at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago, who is on strike to protest the treatment of housekeepers and other hotel workers.
The chat will be tweeted from @Fem2pt0 and @UNITEHereUnion and you can join the chat at #unionwomen.
From Miami to Los Angeles, Union Summer Interns Made a Difference
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When the 45 AFL-CIO Union Summer 2011 interns are asked what they did for their summer vacation, they won’t have any stories about lounging on the beach or backpacking through Europe. But the will tell about making a real difference in people’s lives and about how much that involvement has contributed to their sense of social justice.
The five interns who worked in Charlotte, N.C., can show the video they created showing how they began building a community coalition from scratch, including a creative and funny segment showing how they had to crisscross the city trying to track down the president of the local NAACP.
The Milwaukee contingent will be able to describe how they helped recall two Republicans who support Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-union agenda and how they had to deal with being cursed at and followed by people who opposed their efforts.
Hotel Housekeepers Protest Hyatt
Thousands of hotel workers protested Thursday at Hyatt hotels in nine cities. UNITEHERE! says Hyatt is abusing housekeepers by cutting jobs, replacing experienced employees with minimum wage temporary workers and imposing dangerous workloads on the remaining housekeepers.
Portland Rising Events Teach Union Summer Interns About Solidarity
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AFL-CIO Union Summer interns learned what labor solidarity is all about recently when they joined the Portland (Ore.) Day of Rising sponsored by Jobs with Justice. In a series of seven actions in one day, nearly 200 people traveled across Portland to lend support to workers embroiled in contract disputes and to speak out on trade issues.
Kelsey Jorgenson, an intern working with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), said
Portland Rising gave me an experience of true solidarity. I’ve been to many rallies, but this was the first time that I saw people coming together to support each other at multiple sites and taking on other’s struggles as their own.
Mass. Nurses Approve New Contract—and More Bargaining News
Nurses from the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA/NNU) ratified a new contract with two hospitals and more news from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 1,400 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work
SETTLEMENTS
MNA/NNU, Cape Cod Hospital Group: Members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA/NNU) at Cape Cod and Falmouth Hospitals ratified a new three-year contract, retroactive to Oct. 1, 2010. The contract includes staffing improvements, placing strict limits on the hospitals’ use of mandatory overtime and creating a staffing committee to review staffing levels for patient and nurse safety.
Nurses and Health Professionals /AFT, Milwaukee County: The Wisconsin Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (WFNHP/AFT) won a one-year contract extension for Milwaukee County nurses, just before the state’s new anti-collective bargaining bill takes effect. AFSCME District Council 48, which represents 3,500 county workers, is hoping to similarly reach a new deal before Wednesday, when the state law goes into effect. Read the rest of this entry »
Doctors, Teachers, Bakers and More Win Union Voice
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While Republican lawmakers and right-wing talking heads try to demonize the union movement, physicians, nurses, flight instructors, technicians, bakers and more are the latest workers to choose a voice on the job with AFL-CIO unions.
More than 1,900 AT&T technicians across Communications Workers of America (CWA) District 3 in the Southeastern United States recently joined CWA through majority sign-up. The workers perform installation and repair for AT&T’s U-Verse TV, Internet and voice service.
In Portland, Ore., 156 workers at Dosha Salon and Spa voted for CWA Local 7901 in a hard-fought, 18-month campaign that included fierce anti-union campaign. Organizing Coordinator Al Kogler said the hair stylists, massage therapists, nail technicians, spa hosts, schedulers and laundry workers at the four salon locations didn’t back down.
Instead, the workers stayed upbeat and stuck together, wearing red T-shirts to anti-union meetings and temporary pro-union tattoos.
