Author Archives for Ann Kammerer
Putting the “Affordable” Back Into the Affordable Care Act
July 20, 2015 3:46 pm Leave a comment(Via Huffington Post)-As part of a pledge to protect the middle class, Hillary Clinton is taking a second look at aspects of the ACA that hurt working men and women. That’s good news, and the only responsible position for politicians interested in providing more and better healthcare at lower cost.
Unfortunately, fixing the flaws in the ACA will require Secretary Clinton to confront Democrats and former colleagues like Jared Bernstein, who was a top economic advisor in the Obama White House, and MIT’s notorious Jonathan Gruber, who consulted with the White House on the ACA.
Staff Strike Wyndham Boston Hotel Over Hazardous Working Conditions
June 25, 2015 12:25 pm Leave a comment
Workers plan to attend and testify at investigative City Council hearing tonight
BOSTON, MA—Employees of the Wyndham Boston Beacon Hill Hotel at 5 Blossom Street announced a one-day strike this morning effective 7am.
Workers at the hotel said they were not given adequate supplies or protective equipment to handle potentially infectious materials, including medical waste. The hotel advertises to area hospitals including Massachusetts General Hospital, which maintains an 8-bed sleep study at the hotel. MGH patients stay in the hotel while receiving treatment at the hospital.
Workers filed a complaint to OSHA in May, causing the agency to open an inspection that is ongoing.
Striking workers plan to attend and testify at a Boston City Council hearing tonight to share disturbing details of continued failure by hotel management to sufficiently protect staff while cleaning body fluids and materials that can cause transmission of disease.
“I am striking today because my employer has put me in danger,” said housekeeper Aura Berciano-Reyes. “I don’t want to risk my child becoming ill because I am not protected at work.”
Striking hotel workers will be available for interview today and will testify at the City Council hearing at 5pm at City Hall.
###
Contact: Tiffany Ten Eyck, 313-515-1807, [email protected]
New York Hotel Trades Council (Local 6) Members Vote Overwhelmingly to Ratify Contract Extension
June 10, 2015 11:14 am Leave a comment
Aissata Bocoum (Wyndham New Yorker)
On Thursday, June 4th HTC members voted, by an enormous majority, to approve a 7 year extension to the Industry Wide Agreement which will cover over 23,000 workers, securing an unprecedented 11 years of guaranteed wage increases and healthcare.
3,436 members voted by secret ballot in the Gertrude Lane Auditorium of the Union’s offices in Manhattan. In the final count, 98.7% voted to approve the contract extension.
Voting began at 7am, with members from the 119 Hotel Association Bargaining Group hotels coming individually and in groups to cast their votes. Tonia Johnson-Williams, Room Attendant at the Gregory, said, “I’ve come to vote because it’s important to show support for the Union,” and added, “I’m excited about the wage increases!”
With the extension ratified, IWA increases under the current contract, the last of which is on July 1, 2018, continue unchanged. Then, starting on July 1, 2019 (the day after the current IWA expires), and each July 1st thereafter, through and including 2025, non-tipped workers will receive a raise of $1.00 per hour and tipped workers will receive a raise of $0.50 per hour. This means that by the end of the contract, a Room Attendant will earn $39.87 per hour — over $72,500 per year. A Bellperson will earn $24.05 per hour — over $50,000 per year. Additionally, the contract extension will see employer contributions to the pension fund increased by 9.5% by the end of the extension to ensure that our pension fund remains healthy.
Baltimore airport workers, German allies rally in Frankfurt for better job quality in BWI concessions program
May 30, 2015 1:29 pm Leave a comment
In late May, workers at Baltimore’s BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport visited Frankfurt, Germany. They have asked Fraport AG — parent company of BWI’s concessions developer AirMall USA — to address the poor quality of jobs and working conditions the airport’s food and retail concessions program. Frustrated with lack of action since Fraport acquired AirMall nearly a year ago, workers decided to travel to Frankfurt in order to encourage solutions to the dispute.
In addition to meeting with elected officials, media and other Fraport stakeholders, workers and UNITE HERE representatives were joined by supporters from ver.di, the union representing Fraport’s employees in Germany, for a public event the day of Fraport’s General Assembly.
German Press Coverage:
US-Protest gegen Fraport, taz
Fraport fliegt aufs Ausland, FrankfurterRundschau
Video: Gewinne und kritik für Fraport, RTL-Hessen
German website: flughafenBWI.org
City of LA notifies Flying Food Group of failure to comply with city living wage
May 27, 2015 4:29 pm Leave a comment
As the City of Los Angeles moves to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, it is also cracking down on one company that it says has failed to comply with an existing city living wage. In a letter to Flying Food Group CEO David Cotton, the City advises that 271 employees at the company’s Imperial Highway kitchen have not been paid in accordance to the LA Living Wage Ordinance, dating from May 1, 2010 to the present. As reported in the LA Times,
The letter ordered the back wages paid within ten days of the company receiving the letter and threatened to end all contracts with the city and ban the company from holding a city lease or license for up to three years if the company did not comply. (“Airline food company ordered to pay living wages to employees,” LA Times, May 26, 2015)
According to a survey of Flying Food Group workers conducted by UNITE HERE over the past year, the median wage of respondents is just $10.04 per hour – nearly $6.00 per hour below the $15.84 per hour required under the LWO for workers without company-provided benefits.
Flying Food Group workers at LAX prepare, pack and deliver thousands of meals daily for passengers of major airlines including Air France-KLM, China Airlines, Etihad, Virgin Australia, Japan Air, and others. In recent months, they have actively called on the company to pay them the living wage, rallying at the airport and giving testimony in front of Airport Board of Commissioners.
Earlier this year, nine workers filed a class action lawsuit against the company, alleging that, in refusing to pay the living wage, it had “engaged in widespread and flagrant violations” of the municipal law.
A Special Letter to the UNITE HERE Family: Our Commitment to Justice
May 1, 2015 10:33 pm Leave a comment
“Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon and which cuts without wounding and enables the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our Union is among the most militant in America.
Our members are people of all colors and immigrants from around the world. They’re brave people who left everything behind—whether escaping segregation in the Deep South; political persecution in Cuba and Central America; war in Africa; economic degradation in Haiti, the Philippines and Mexico; or old factory towns destroyed in our countries.
We are fighters. We are a union of people who fight for every inch of progress and against all forms of repression. We led the historic Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. We were the first to endorse an African American candidate for President. We were the Union to demand African American hiring in our Union Contracts and an end to bigotry against our sisters and brothers in the LGBT community.
Police violence against unarmed African American men only reminds us of the images of Selma. And mass incarceration of men and youth of color exposes the travesty of the current criminal justice system.
But violence in response to violence is both unacceptable and counter-productive. It always leads to loss of those who are oppressed and reinforces the view of the oppressor.
We must all be reminded that militancy does not mean violence. And non-violence does not mean weakness.
Most of our Union’s leaders have taken to the streets, been arrested, but always held their ground: hands and fists raised in protest, but never in acts of violence.
We have an unfulfilled obligation to teach young and justifiably angry women and men how they can practice our kind of militant non-violence. Because we win. It works.
I am calling on our Union’s leaders throughout the United States and Canada to reach out in the communities we represent and share with all who want to learn from us and form a more just society.
Our Union stands strong in the face of injustice and exclusion and racism and sexism. Black lives matter. Immigrants’ lives matter. LGBTQ lives matter. Women’s lives matter. Workers’ lives matter. This has been our defining purpose as a Union all along: to fight for basic human rights and human dignity. And we must be more strongly committed to this fight than ever.
Fraternally,
D. Taylor
Workers Memorial Day: Honoring the Sacrifice, Renewing the Promise
April 28, 2015 9:31 am Leave a comment
Each year on April 28, unions like ours pause to observe Workers Memorial Day. We honor the hard work and sacrifice of those who have been injured, made sick or killed on the job and we reaffirm our commitment to fight for safe and healthy workplaces.
A 2006 UNITE HERE report found that many hotel housekeepers experience debilitating pain and injuries after years of making beds and scrubbing toilets. Another academic report published by in 2010 found that the incidence of these injuries can vary by gender and ethnicity, reporting that Latina housekeepers in the study had almost double the risk of injury of white housekeepers doing the same job.1 And hazards of housekeeping work may only get worse as hotel companies implement room changes including heavier mattresses, more linens, and other room amenities.
Employees who report injuries or hazards can face harsh discipline or termination. The consequence is that workers underreport injury and illness and continue to endure life-threatening working conditions. It’s no wonder that, 50,000 workers die from occupational diseases caused by prolonged exposures to toxic chemicals and other health hazards annually.
UNITE HERE has steadily fought back back against employers that put workers in peril and cost lives. But much more work needs to be done.
“No one should have to risk their health at work. But the reality is that too many employers are placing profits over people and workers suffer,” says D. Taylor, the President of UNITE HERE. “By organizing and winning strong union contracts, housekeepers and other workers in the hospitality industry have made great strides to ensure their work is safe and sustainable, and we will continue that work until the dangers facing every worker, from the airport and hotel to farm and factories, are eliminated.”
Read more about Workers Memorial Day here and share this graphic to let the world know that you support workers.
1 “Occupational injury disparities in the US hotel industry,” Susan Buchanan, Pamela Vossenas, Niklas Krause, et.al., American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Vol. 53, Issue 2, pp 116-125, February 2010.
The Boston Globe: A Path to the Middle Class Via Hotel Work
April 20, 2015 2:37 pm Leave a comment
We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished in Boston.
The Boston Globe says, “if you’re a member of Unite Here Local 26, the union that covers more than half of the hotel workers in Boston and Cambridge, the pay and benefits are striking: Entry-level salaries at $19 per hour; family health care for $12 per week; a housing program that gives you $10,000 toward a down payment.”
It also means equality and opportunity. UNITE HERE Local 26 has decreased the barriers that African Americans face getting access to these good jobs. We did it by negotiating with Boston’s hotel employers to include hiring accountability and a training program into the union contracts.
That’s why the Boston Globe says, “THERE IS arguably no path to middle-class life in Boston more swift and secure than a job in a big hotel.”
Read full story here about how we’re changing lives in Boston!
Workers at Harvard-Owned Hotel Win Union, End Boycott
April 13, 2015 10:27 am Leave a comment
On November 20, 2014, housekeeping staff struck the hotel.
Workers at the Harvard-owned DoubleTree Suites by Hilton in Allston announced Saturday that they have won a union.
Workers joined UNITE HERE Local 26, Boston’s hotel workers union, ending a more than 2-year public fight and boycott. During the course of their campaign housekeepers educated the public about the pain they experienced cleaning hotel rooms. Undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard launched a campus campaign to encourage Harvard to support the workers’ demands.
“It is inspiring to see that when workers and students come together, real change can be made,” said Harvard freshman Angela Leocata. “The DoubleTree workers winning a union proves the power of collective action and the promise of student-worker solidarity.”
The workers made national news in May when they appealed to Facebook COO and feminist Sheryl Sandberg. Sandberg declined an invitation to “lean in” with immigrant housekeepers.
More recently, housekeepers at the hotel held the first hotel workers’ strike in Boston in more than 100 years. On November 20, 2014, housekeeping staff struck the hotel and joined hundreds of students and supporters on Harvard’s campus where more than 3000 cards of support were signed and delivered to administration.
“Working while pregnant at the hotel was a difficult time for me,” said housekeeper Delmy Lemus. “I am joyful today.”
Ongoing picket lines, rallies, and leaflet actions on campus and at the hotel were a major part of the workers’ campaign and boycott. Already unionized hotel workers from Local 26 often joined them.
“Our members believe all workers deserve the standard that we’ve fought for,” said Boston hotel workers union President Brian Lang. “We will be relentless until all hotel and hospitality workers in Boston can work safely and can provide a better life for their families.”
With union recognition, workers will now sit down to bargain their first contract.
“It will be powerful to negotiate with management as partners and equals,” said housekeeper Sandra Hernandez.
Learn more at www.local26.org.