Chicago Aldermen, community leaders, and more than 300 O’Hare and Midway airport concessions workers and allies rallied in City Hall on October 5 to introduce the Stable Jobs, Stable Airports Ordinance to ensure stability for O’Hare and Midway passengers, City revenue, and Chicago communities as Chicago puts airport concession contracts worth more than $2.5 billion out to bid.

While 70% of O’Hare and Midway concessions are controlled by multinational companies based overseas, they have used a loophole to evade Chicago’s “living wage” of $11.18 per hour for contractors, pocketing millions of dollars that should go to Chicago workers and communities.

“It troubles me to see so many people struggling to pay for basic things like food or rent, while these big corporations are pocketing millions,” said Jerry Ward, a retail worker at Midway Airport who lives in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood.

For more information, click here. To watch video of Local 1 member Jerry Ward speaking at the rally, click here.

A California state hearing officer has found the Embassy Suites in Irvine guilty of denying rest breaks to hotel workers and has ordered the hotel pay $36,000 to workers.

Dozens of hotel workers filed complaints with the State of California in August 2010 after being denied the breaks to which they were entitled by law. At the time, the non-union workers walked off the job in a one-day strike to protest the pervasive problem. 

The hotel is managed by Merritt Hospitality, a subsidiary of HEI Hotels.

An official from the Department of Labor Standards Enforcement listened to seven of the workers’ complaints in a formal hearing and awarded each worker about $5,000 in back pay. The remaining hotel workers who filed complaints will testify before a hearing officer in coming months.

"I feel vindicated," said Ana Maria Trevino, an Embassy Suites housekeeper. "Because of so much work, we rarely got to take breaks. It was just another way for the hotel managers to take advantage of us and maximize profits at our expense. I’m proud that we stood up, fought back and won."

More than 70 campus dining workers at Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) have organized to join UNITE HERE.

"The students and professors at IUPUI have stood with us the whole way," says Maria Banuelos, a leader in the worker organizing committee at IUPUI. “I have always tried to create a welcoming environment for the students and professors here, but I never knew how much they cared about us. Knowing that they were behind us gave me confidence that we could organize to make our jobs better.”

"As a student at IUPUI, I understand the hard work and dedication of our food service workers," says Abigail Ogden, an IUPUI student. "The workers genuinely care about us. When I found out that I could organize with people like Maria to make IUPUI a better place to work, I knew that I had to do my part. The food service workers at IUPUI are an essential part of our community, and I am honored to have the chance to stand in solidarity with them."

IUPUI is the 9th university where campus dining workers have joined UNITE HERE since last fall.

Dining hall workers at Harvard, the country’s oldest university, have brought home a historic victory.

UNITE HERE Local 26’s 550 members at Harvard started organizing a contract campaign a year ago to push Harvard to provide sustainable food and create sustainable jobs. While Harvard workers had decent pay and benefits, their real earnings had been going down for years as Harvard cut back the number of hours worked.

Dining hall workers partnered with Harvard students who organized delegations, participated in demonstrations, sat on the bargaining committee, and even leafleted Harvard president Drew Faust. Workers from Local 35 at Yale came to Harvard to attend rallies and participate in contract negotiations.

As part of the contract settlement, Harvard agreed to create a joint committee with the union to adopt best practices for environmentally responsible food sourcing and preparation. Harvard also agreed to give Local 26 members priority hiring for jobs during the summer and winter recess. Harvard dining hall workers won language that says that Local 26 members have to be offered work, including overtime, before temporary jobs can be assigned.

Other key components to the ground-breaking contract included better protections for immigrant workers, better sick day coverage, seniority that workers carry with them throughout Harvard departments, significant wage increases, and a preservation of the quality health insurance with no increased payment by workers.

"This is a big victory," said Dennis Papantonatos, a, Shop Steward and Bargaining Committee Member. "It moves us toward 12-month out of the year full employment, and it’s going to mean a lot of improvements in the quality of the food for the students."

On September 8th, 86 workers at "Ames," a luxury boutique hotel in Boston, joined UNITE HERE Local 26. Ames is the 12th hotel to join Local 26 since 2000. Workers at the W hotel joined Local 26 earlier this year.

Nicholas Panagakos, a doorman at the hotel, said, "I’ve worked at Ames for over a year and I’m thrilled to be joining my union sisters and brothers in Local 26. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. We need to negotiate a first contract, and then we need to go out and bring more hotels into the union."

Ames, located next to Boston’s City Hall, has 114 rooms and the Woodward restaurant.

(photo by A Gude)

Last week Local 6 and the New York Hotel Trades Council settled its 44-day strike at the Boathouse Restaurant in Central Park on excellent terms. After fighting the workers’ effort to organize for months, the Boathouse agreed to recognize the Union and signed a four-year contract. The Boathouse also agreed to reinstate all workers fired for supporting the Union. The first-time contract includes tremendous gains, including an immediate increase in wages for many non-tipped workers from $7.50 to $13.50 an hour, wage hikes for all other bargaining unit members, improved work conditions and full family medical and dental coverage for all employees and their domestic partners. 

Click here to read the New York Times coverage of the settlement.

Workers at the East Bay’s only Indian casino have asked the San Pablo council to help them in their quest for better wages, benefits and working conditions. Casino San Pablo Workers, Contra Costa Labor Council, UNITE HERE Local 2850, SEIU-USWW, Oakland Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), San Pablo Residents, and many others stood up for the casino workers at a council meeting on September 19th.

More than 150 food service, housekeeping and other workers and their union, Unite Here Local 2850, are at a bitter stalemate with Casino San Pablo, owned by the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians. The workers say the casino has cut their benefits while denying them a raise.

Starting pay of Local 2850 members at Casino San Pablo ranges from $8 an hour, or the minimum wage in California, for porters and food servers, to $14.12 an hour for a lead cook, with an average wage of $9.50 an hour, said union organizer Max Alper.

Local 2850 President Wei-Ling Huber said management’s lamentation about health care costs rings hollow, arguing that only about half the number of workers get it today as did in 2002.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Learn more about the fight at www.sharesanpablo.org.

On Septemember 18, Aramark workers at Citizens Bank Park voted 515 to 275 to reject the company’s final contract offer, setting the stage for a public dispute just as the Phillies clinched the NL East.On September 19, Aramark workers at Consol Energy Center voted 273 to 28 to reject Aramark’s contract offer, just as the Pittsburgh Penguins season begins on September 21. The disputes center around three issues: wages, benefits, and opportunity to work.

"When I started out here, I didn’t have kids and I could find a second job. Now I have kids to support and finding work is harder than ever because of the recession," said Briheem Douglas, a concessions worker. "Working at Citizens Bank Park isn’t just a side job for me. I depend on the wages I earn to support my family."

"When we have a long homestand Aramark won’t let me work every game. I lose a full game’s worth of tips, which adds up," said Denise Pane, a suites attendant at CBP. "I love serving the fans of the greatest team on the planet, and I’m standing up for a contract that lets me work every game."

"Last year I worked more, but I earned less than the year before. And now Aramark wants to cut our gratuity, which means each worker would lose an estimated $1,500 a year. Aramark can do better," said Jay Szewczyk, suite attendant at Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh.

UNITE HERE represents stadium workers who prepare and sell food, drinks, and merchandise in the stands, suites, and seats. This includes 1,500 Aramark workers at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, and 600 Aramark workers at Consol Arena in Pittsburgh. Across North America, UNITE HERE represents 250,000 stadium, food service, hotel, airport, and gaming workers, including approximately 6,000 in Philadelphia and 2,500 in Pittsburgh.

This month, campus dining workers at Northwestern University, members of UNITE HERE Local 1, won an agreement with their employer, Sodexo, that brings significant improvements in wages, health benefits and language that protects immigrant workers.

The insistence by Northwestern students, faculty, administration and alumni that the University create good, sustainable jobs on campus was key to the success of the campaign. In addition to putting on a student-worker seminar to build support for a Living Wage, students addressed their concerns to the Faculty Senate and, in a powerful show of solidarity, students marched together with workers in each cafeteria to tell management about the importance of getting a fair contract.

The result of this community-wide solidarity is:

• Free Individual Health Insurance and only $85.00 per month for family coverage for most workers now and for all workers by 2015
• A living wage of between $11.50 and $14.20 by 2015
• Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid holiday
• Language to protect immigrant workers

"I’ve worked for Sodexo, a multi-billion dollar corporation, for the last seven years as a cook at Northwestern University," says Coco Ajavon. "Right now, I pay over $200 a month for health insurance for myself and my wife. I feel proud to say that, because of the union contract we negotiated, I can now support my family with dignity. A living wage and free health care is something all workers deserve, and we now have that."

Join Fem2.0 and UNITE HERE! for a #unionwomen Tweet Chat on Wednesday, September 14th, from 2PM EST-3PM EST, to talk about the unique role women play in the labor movement and the benefits of union membership for women.

We’ll be joined by Janel Charles, a housekeeper at a Hyatt hotel in Chicago, who is on strike this week to protest the treatment of housekeepers and other hotel workers.

As we’ve seen in recent months, the labor movement is under attack, and women’s rights are being rolled back by anti-choice legislation and a culture of victim-blaming in the media. Members of both movements are coming together on Wednesday to talk about the attacks on our shared progressive values and how we can work together to ensure the safety America’s female workers.

We’ll be tweeting from @Fem2pt0 and @UNITEHEREUnion, so be sure to join us at #unionwomen on Wednesday!