On the 11th anniversary of September 11, 2001, UNITE HERE remembers all those who lost their lives on that tragic day. We hold especially close the memory of our 43 sisters and brothers from UNITE HERE Local 100 who died while working at Windows on the World, a restaurant located at the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
In memory of our fallen brothers and sisters at Windows on the World:
Sophia Buruwa Addo
Shabbir Ahmed
Antonio J. Alvarez
Telmo Alvear
Manuel O. Asitimbay
Samuel Ayala
Ivhan Luis Carpio Bautista
Jesus Cabezas
Manuel Gregorio Chavez
Mohammed S. Chowdhury
Jose De Pena
Nancy Diaz
Henry Fernandez
Lucille Virgen Francis
Enrique A. Gomez
Jose B. Gomez
Wilder Gomez
Ysidro Hidalgo Tejada
John Holland
Francois Jean-Pierre
Eliezer Jimenez Jr.
Abdoulaye Kone
Victor Kwarkye
Jeffrey Latouche
Lebardo Lopez
Jan Maciejewski
Manuel Mejia
Antonio Melendez
Nana Akwasi Minkah
Martin Morales
Blanca Morocho
Jerome Nedd
Juan Nieves Jr.
Jose R. Nunez
Isidro Ottenwalder
Jesus Ovalles
Victor Paz Gutierrez
Alejo Perez
Moises Rivas
David B. Rodriguez Vargas
Gilbert Ruiz
Juan Salas
Abdoul Karim Traore
The families and coworkers of those mostly immigrant workers talk about their loss, their dreams, and their challenges in the movie "Windows."
Early this morning, the approximately 25,000 members of the Chicago Teachers Union walked out on strike to continue their effort to create schools – and workplaces – that can provide the best education possible for our city’s children.
UNITE HERE Local 1, which represents 3,200 lunchroom workers in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), stands strongly with the teachers. Though we are not on strike, we will join the picket lines wherever possible.
When the lunchroom workers of UNITE HERE Local 1 reached an agreement with CPS on their own union contract in April of this year, we announced a major success in the workers’ Let’s Cook! campaign to ensure a future of fresh food for Chicago’s kids. The groundbreaking settlement set a course for school meals in Chicago that incorporate the input of the lunchroom workers and respect their skills and experience as frontline caretakers of the kids.
It is now time for the Chicago Public Schools to show that same respect to its teachers – to incorporate their voice, experience, and vision for the future of education in Chicago.
We know that caretakers in the schools every day – be they teachers or lunchroom workers – always hold the interests of all of our children close to their hearts. Their jobs are difficult, but their commitment is great.
"Just like the lunchroom workers, the teachers are nurturers who every day are also counselors, comforters, and mentors to our kids," said Shay Hillsman, a CPS lunchroom worker and member of UNITE HERE Local 1. She added, “I support the teachers as a fellow worker but also as a parent. They are fighting for educational opportunity for my kids too.”
We are proud to stand together in the schools and on the streets as long as it takes to realize a vision for a better school day for our kids and a better city for all of us.
Doubletree Hotel workers and their community allies rally today in San Jose demonstrating against their major hotel corporation’s refusal to settle a fair contract. They will be joined by Cindy Chavez, head of the South Bay Central Labor Council, and religious leaders. The demonstration launches a consumer boycott of the Doubletree by Hilton San Jose.
Today’s action comes after over one year of negotiations, and months of street actions which culminated in a 4-day strike in June – the first in a San Jose hotel in more than 30 years. Despite a recovering economy, Hilton is refusing to pay the money necessary to maintain the worker’s health care benefits. Hilton is also seeking wage freezes for all employees.
The Blackstone Group – which owns Hilton Hotels – recently announced that “we ended the quarter with total assets under management of $190 Billion, up 20% year over year. Our newest global real estate fund is over $12 Billion, which is the largest fund of this type ever raised. The firm has substantial dry powder capital to deploy over the next several years.” Blackstone paid its CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, $1.39 BILLION in 2008 and $702,400,000 in 2009.
"We are determined to win a good contract," said Dolores Dominguez, a 7 year Banquet Server at the Doubletree Hotel. "It’s wrong for corporations to position themselves to make billions in the coming economic recovery, and expect us and our families to go backward. We are sure the public will support us in this fight."
The contract settlement at the Doubletree by Hilton will set the contract pattern for hotels in the south bay including the Fairmont and downtown Marriott.
About UNITEHERE! Local 19: Local 19 is the union of hotel, gaming and food service workers in the Central and Silicon Valleys. It represents about 4,500 workers in the hospitality industry.
In an August 17 decision, Administrative Law Judge Clifford Anderson of the National Labor Relations Board found that Castlewood Country Club has maintained an illegal lockout since August 10, 2010. He recommended that the NLRB order Castlewood to reinstate the locked-out workers and pay them two years of back wages and benefits.
"We’ve been saying for two years that Castlewood wasn’t giving us a fair chance to get our jobs back. Now Judge Anderson is saying the same thing. I hope this will be a wake-up call to the golfers that they need to stop stalling and put us back to work," said Castlewood cook Carlos Mejia.
Anderson wrote, "I find that that the Club had abandoned its earlier good faith bargaining for a new contract and, as of August 10, 2010, the Respondent was no longer bargaining in good faith with an intent to reach an agreement. Rather, it was unlawfully endeavoring to frustrate the bargaining process and reduce the possibility of the parties arriving at any agreement . . . I further find that the Respondent’s conduct on that date and the positions taken in bargaining on that day were undertaken because of its animus toward the Union and animus to the locked out employees who supported the Union in bargaining."
"We’re thrilled about the decision, but we know we could still have a long fight in front of us," said Castlewood janitor Francisca Carranza. "We need our friends in the community to stand behind us as much as ever."
Parking workers at the Madison Hotel in Washington DC, who are members of UNITE HERE Local 27, unanimously ratified their first contract with ENCORE Parking Inc. on August 13, 2012. This four year contract provides affordable health insurance and yearly wage increases totaling $1.30 per hour by the end of the agreement. The contract also protects the rights of future ENCORE Parking employees in the Washington DC Metropolitan area to join the Union.
The agreement covers all eighteen parking workers at the Hotel including Valet Attendants, Cashiers, Maintenance Workers and Lead Attendants. The Madison Hotel is the first ENCORE location in the DC area to have a union contract.
SEATTLE – Amidst news of the impending sale of the Hilton Seattle Hotel, the R.C. Hedreen Company – the hotel’s current owner – agreed to the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement yesterday with UNITE HERE Local 8, the union representing nearly 100 workers at the hotel. This agreement includes a guarantee that workers will keep their jobs when the hotel is sold. The terms of the contract also include wage increases, affordable health insurance premiums, and safer workloads for housekeepers.
The Hilton Seattle put the hotel up for sale in September 2011, causing immediate concern for its longtime workers, who feared their jobs would be sold out from under them.
Chuck Cruise, a bellman for over 30 years, including 6 years at the Hilton Seattle, is breathing easier knowing he can continue to rely on his job. “My wife and I depend on our medical insurance for our lives. If we didn’t have my job, we’d have nothing.”
Chuck did not look forward to the prospect of entering the job market again. “I know I wouldn’t find a job quickly in this economy, especially one that would pay a living wage and cover my family’s medical bills.”
At the Hilton Seattle, a typical full-time hotel worker makes approximately $30,000 annually with full family medical coverage, among other benefits. By contrast, the median wage for a Seattle hotel worker is barely above the federal poverty level, amounting to $23,000 annually, often without affordable health insurance. A recent report from Puget Sound Sage, a regional economic policy advocacy organization, further discusses the poverty working conditions of hotel workers across Seattle, and is available at www.pugetsoundsage.org/hotelreport.
“The union helped my coworkers and me stay strong to fight for our jobs,” says Chuck. “I’m glad we could work out an agreement with the R.C. Hedreen Company that keeps us working and living a decent life.”
“Richard Hedreen showed again his longstanding leadership in our community, doing the right thing for workers and for Seattle,” says Erik Van Rossum, the executive officer of UNITE HERE Local 8. “The agreement protects the livelihoods of a hundred Seattle area families, and that will have a positive effect throughout the region.“
The signing of the new agreement, which will carry over to the new owners, also marks the end of the Hilton Seattle boycott, called by workers last September.
According to the agreement, the retention of the current workers and continued application of the terms of the new contract will be a condition of any sale.
For more information, contactJasmine Marwaha,UNITE HERE Local 8, 206-963-6458, [email protected]
Last Wednesday, the members of UNITE HERE! Local 35 and Local 34 unanimously ratified four-year contracts with Yale University. The contracts provide opportunities for job advancement, quality, affordable healthcare, and substantial wage increases for approximately 1200 service and maintenance employees in Local 35, and 3500 clerical and technical employees in Local 34.
The contracts ensure a continuation of a high standard of wages and benefits that the Locals have secured for decades. Between Local 34 and Local 35, members will see an average wage increase of 15%-20% over the life of the contract. Both Locals will continue to enjoy free premiums at the award-winning on-campus health services, as well as affordable, high-quality alternatives for healthcare off-campus. In addition to these benefits, Local 34 created historic structural solutions to long-standing glass ceilings by creating joint University-Union oversight of internal hiring and promotions. Local 35 won advancement tracks for several job classifications, and "no-layoff" language for the life of the contract.
Remarkably, the contracts will also extend these high standards to more people in New Haven. The contract creates a joint University-Union Jobs Pipeline Program to help create employment opportunities for the city’s 10,000 unemployed and underemployed residents. As part of this program, Yale has agreed to invest in training opportunities for city residents and to prioritize local hiring. Local 35’s new contract creates a number of new positions in both skilled trades and entry-level work, and Local 34 won language that would reduce the University’s reliance on casual work by converting temporary positions into full-time Union jobs available to Local 34 members and New Haven Jobs Pipeline Program graduates.
UNITE HERE at Yale members won these contracts after nearly a year of creative organizing. The campaigns began last June with community-based organizing to help elect a worker-friendly Board of Aldermen in New Haven city government during the 2011 elections. On the heels of that victory, rank and file members of both Locals formed large organizing committees that carried out rapid-fire actions both inside and outside the workplace. Close to 3,000 members completed contract surveys in December. Throughout the winter and spring, 800 members sat down with their supervisors to discuss contract issues, and more than 1,500 participated in negotiations caucuses. In April, 2,000 joined a Union-community march through downtown New Haven. And finally, over 4,000 members signed a petition for great contracts in just ten days in June. These efforts made the contract campaign one of the most participatory and democratic negotiations in recent memory, and produced contracts that will continue to move working people in southern Connecticut forward together.
The settlements come six months before the expiration of the existing Local 34 and Local 35 contracts. After 40 years of strikes and discord, the Yale administration, led by President Richard Levin, and our Locals have worked hard together to make negotiations a more constructive process. That effort is progressing: this is the second consecutive round of bargaining at Yale that has resulted in early settlements that both our members and the University feel good about. Both of these new contracts were ratified unanimously by the members.
Atlantic City, NJ-UNITE HERE Local 54 has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board in Philadelphia over Tropicana’s illegal suspension of 21 workers who engaged a peaceful first amendment protest which included a civil disobedience action.
In a letter to the NLRB accompanying the charges, Local 54’s attorney wrote, "Tropicana, however, chose to use this demonstration to restrain, coerce and intimidate its employees by suspending shop stewards and bargaining committee members." The letter continues "It is quite obvious that Tropicana’s latest tactic of suspending certain of the employees who engaged in the demonstration is intended to chill employee support for the Union during this critical phase when Tropicana has already made unlawful unilateral changes."
"These workers engaged in a peaceful act of civil disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. We are asking the NLRB to seek an injunction to stop Tropicana’s illegal actions and get these workers back to work so that they can provide for their families. We’ve done civil disobedience before, and no company has had the audacity to fire its workers over it. This just shows how outrageous Tony Rodio’s leadership is," said Bob McDevitt, President of the 14,000 person union.
According to the letter, the workers who were arrested "were charged with two petty disorderly persons offenses under New Jersey law. Petty disorderly persons offenses do not constitute crimes under New Jersey law."
Francine Stevenson, a housekeeper and 17-year employee of Tropicana, said, "I’m supporting my two granddaughters, one of whom is starting college next year. I want to get back to work. If Tropicana thinks that we are going to be intimidated by these suspensions, they don’t know their workers. We’re not intimidated, we’re mad."
Background:
UNITE HERE Local 54 represents bartenders, cocktail waitress, housekeepers, cooks and other service workers in Atlantic City’s casinos. In 2004, after contract negotiations broke done, Local 54 members struck the Tropicana and 6 other casinos for 34 days. In 2007, Local 54 opposed the licensing of Columbia Sussex at the Tropicana. The Casino Control Commission ultimately denied Columbia Sussex a license.
(Chicago, IL) Today, strikers at the Congress Hotel, joined by hundreds of community supporters and members of UNITE HERE Local 1, are rallying outside of the Congress Hotel to commemorate the 9th Anniversary of the Congress Hotel Strike, the longest active strike in the U.S.
On June 15, 2003, members of UNITE HERE Local 1 working at the Congress Hotel went out on strike after the hotel decided to freeze wages, refused to pay healthcare premiums for its employees (effectively eliminating employee healthcare benefits), and demanded the ability to subcontract out all bargaining unit work at the hotel.
"If we quit with the strike now, we quit the fight to ensure hotel jobs in the city are good, family-sustaining jobs," says Mario Moreno who worked at the Congress for nine years before the strike began. "The biggest injustices can’t be solved in a day. They take time."
There are about 60 active remaining strikers, who both picket the Congress hotel and have led a campaign statewide to bring an end to the Congress Hotel Strike. Working families in Chicago have made astounding gains in recent years because the Congress strikers have refused to settle for substandard wages. At the time that the strike began, Chicago housekeepers were making just $8.83 an hour, compared to $15.70 an hour today. To ensure that hotel jobs in this city are strong, family-sustaining jobs, Congress strikers have taken the fight to the streets of Chicago and all over the world.
This year’s anniversary is the first since the rise of the Occupy movement and protesting by working people in Wisconsin. These protestors, along with hundreds of other individuals, spontaneously rallied with Congress strikers in solidarity during the NATO convention in Chicago this year. These people-powered movements fighting against the abuses of the large corporations echo the sentiment that the strikers of the Congress Hotel stand for.
"The sacrifice the strikers have made to go out on the line daily speaks to not only their dedication, but to the intense belief these individuals have for what they’re doing," said Henry Tamarin, UNITE HERE Local 1 President. "The strikers know their dedication to the boycott will help working families now and in the future."
Today the Department of Homeland Security announced a new immigration policy that will allow an estimated 1 million students an opportunity to avoid deportation and to receive authorization to work. These young people are a bright part of America’s national fabric. Students who might otherwise find themselves in deportation proceedings, or who would qualify for the DREAM Act under better circumstances, will not be deported, and will be allowed to work and make a contribution to this nation. They will not need to live in the shadows anymore.
This action brings hope to more than a million students and their families. It is clearly in the nation’s best interest. While the House of Representatives seems to be moving backwards on relief for these students, and the U.S. Senate seems to be in paralysis on the issue, today DHS acted to do the right thing. UNITE HERE International Union and its 250,000 members applaud President Obama and his Administration for taking this much needed and courageous step.