The Vancouver, Washington Hilton contract expired on June 30, 2011, along with many other union contracts across the Northwest. Unions joined together and filled three buses with union members, activists and Jobs With Justice affiliates and visited seven worksites in one afternoon to demand fair contracts. That day, 150 people stood alongside the Vancouver, Washington Hilton workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 9, as they delivered a petition to management that demanded livable wage increases and family healthcare.
Workers demand hotel management turn over their healthcare payments
Who: Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel Workers, Supporters
What: STRIKE, Picket Line
Where: 12825 Ventura Blvd. Studio City, CA 91604
When: 6 AM – Wednesday, June 29 – picket will continue throughout the day
Why: The Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel has put its workers’ healthcare in jeopardy by failing to turn over the workers’ healthcare deductions to the workers’ health fund administrator.
If the hotel does not turn over the workers’ money to the health fund, about 80 workers and their families will lose healthcare coverage.
That’s our money, deducted from our checks, to go to our family healthcare. The Sportsmen’s Lodge cannot keep it for itself," said Marco Alcala, a Sportsmen’s Lodge houseman. "We’re not going back to work until the company does the right thing."
Workers will be on strike throughout the day on Wednesday, possibly longer. For more information, please call Leigh Shelton at 323-533-3864.
After a three-hour strike, the Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel workers returned to work Wednesday, having persuaded the company to turn over the nearly $3,000 of worker healthcare deductions due to the health insurance administrator.
The Sportsmen’s Lodge hotel put its workers’ healthcare in jeopardy by failing to turn over the workers’ healthcare deductions to the workers’ health fund administrator.
If the hotel had not turned over the workers’ money to the health fund, about 80 workers and their families would’ve lost healthcare coverage.
"The hotel had a responsibility to send our healthcare payments to our health fund, not hold on to it. Doing so put our families in jeopardy," said Marco Alcala, a houseman at the hotel. "Today’s strike demonstrated the unity of the workers and what we’re willing to do to make our voices heard."
For more information, please call Leigh Shelton 323-533-3864.
On June 23, in Oakland, California, Local 2850 escalated the fight at Castlewood County Club, where the workers have been locked out since February 25, 2010.
In the first civil disobedience to take place at the Club, nearly 100 demonstrators blocked the roadway leading to an entrance of the golf course for several hours during the Club’s largest annual golf tournament.
Two dozen demonstrators were arrested after successfully blockading the street for over three hours.
UNITE HERE Local 11 and the Anaheim Hilton hotel reached a tentative contract agreement this week that includes continued, affordable family healthcare and raises for the some 700 hotel workers.
"We are very happy to have settled such a great contract," said Adrianna de Martinez, an Anaheim Hilton housekeeper. "We are grateful to management for understanding our needs and respecting us enough to agree to a deal that is fair for both sides."
The three-year contract includes a signing bonus, a $.40 raise in 2011 and $.60 raise in 2012 for all non-tipped workers. Tipped employees in banquets and in-room dining won a signing bonus and greater share of the hotel’s service charge. The bell desk employees won increases in delivery fees and more money when guests store baggage, increasing their take-home pay.
In perhaps the biggest victory, the hotel agreed to increase healthcare contributions to ensure that workers will continue to have access to family medical and dental care.
Union workers at the Asilomar Conference Grounds, members of UNITE HERE Local 483, approved a 4-year and 9 month labor contract, which calls for up to $5.34 per hour in additional wages and benefits over the life of the agreement, as well as workload improvements. The union members voted today, June 22, 2011, at Asilomar with 98% approval. The contract covers 150 employees, including housekeepers, porters, cooks, dishwashers, servers, groundskeepers, maintenance, laundry, retail, and front desk workers. The agreement is with the Asilomar management company, Philadelphia-based ARAMARK.
"I am so happy that we got the union standards for pay and health insurance for our families. Also, we’ll have safer workloads for housekeepers like me," said Concepcion Geronimo, a 15-year Asilomar housekeeper and member of the Local 483 negotiating committee.
Richard “Chuck” Smith, another member of the union bargaining team and Asilomar grounds crew worker for 4 years, said, "This is a terrific contract. It was a long time coming, but in the end, we’ve got a more secure future ahead of us. That’s a very good thing!”
(Chicago, IL)–After 20 months of negotiations, housekeepers, dishwashers, bellmen and other hotel workers are going on a one-day strike at the Hyatt Regency Chicago, the largest Hyatt property in the world. Hyatt, a company run by billionaires, wants to outsource work and impose dangerous working conditions on housekeepers. Workers also say they want to be able to show solidarity with Hyatt workers elsewhere. Under Hyatt’s current terms, they would be forced to waive their right to do so.
Hundreds of religious leaders affiliated with Interfaith Worker Justice will be joining workers on the picket lines today. Rabbis and other religious leaders have played a key role nationally in building support for Hyatt workers across North America. Most notably in Chicago, religious leaders have led delegations to top Hyatt executives at Hyatt Global Headquarters in December 2009 and at Hyatt’s first annual shareholders meeting in Chicago in June 2010.
Nationwide, Hyatt has sparked controversy for its abuse of housekeepers and for replacing long-term employees with workers from temporary agencies at far lower rates of pay. As a result, Hyatt has faced numerous strikes and dozens of demonstrations nationally in recent years.
"Our bodies hurt, but Hyatt is ignoring us. We will no longer suffer in silence," says Cecilia Leiva, a housekeeper at the Hyatt Regency Chicago.
Academic studies have shown housekeeping to be dangerous work that can lead to debilitating injuries. A landmark study of 50 hotels published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine in 2010 found that housekeepers working at Hyatt hotels had the highest rate of injury for housekeepers among the five major hotel companies included in the study.
"Hyatt is one of the most abusive hotels in their treatment of housekeepers and has the worst record on subcontracting," says Henry Tamarin, the President of UNITE HERE Local 1. "They refuse to budge on these important issues, and now workers have hit a boiling point."
Nationwide, the hotel industry is rebounding faster and stronger than expected, with a hearty rebound projected in 2011 and 2012. Hyatt has more cash on hand than most of the major hotel operators combined, and yet across North America Hyatt continues to lock workers into poverty.
UNITE HERE Local 1 represents over 700 workers at the Hyatt Regency, the 2019-room hotel on Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago. Contracts for Hyatt workers expired on August 31, 2009. In May 2010, Hyatt Regency workers—led by more than 100 housekeepers—walked off the job, protesting worsening working conditions in housekeeping after a major hotel renovation. In September 2010, workers at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare in Rosemont, Ill. carried out a one-day strike. The strike will last from 4:00am-8:00pm Monday.
On Friday, June 17th, workers at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki officially launched a boycott of their hotel, with a rally followed by a press conference. This Hyatt will now join 17 other Hyatts across the country under boycott. Last week, on June 8, in an overwhelming show of solidarity, union hotel workers at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki voted to authorize a consumer boycott of the hotel.
In the last year, workers at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki have participated in a civil disobedience action (July 2010), a one-day limited duration strike (September 2010), and numerous pickets and rallies in front of the Hyatt that most recently resulted in a demonstration in the Hyatt’s lobby (February of 2011).
Union hotel workers at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki are fighting to defend and maintain good jobs for Hawaii by putting an end to subcontracting.
Union contracts for over 500 hotel workers at the Hyatt Regency Waikiki expired on June 30, 2010.
Local 5 represents over 10,500 workers throughout Hawaii who work in the hospitality, health care and food service industries and is an affiliate of UNITE HERE, an international union that represents over 250,000 workers throughout the U.S. and Canada.
The Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community and local restaurant Pizza Pi raised hundreds of dollars in raffle tickets and food and beverage proceeds for fired HEI Hilton Housekeepers on Wednesday, June 15.
About 100 community members came out to support the five fired HEI Hilton housekeepers, packing the small pizzeria for about three hours. The raffle between music sets sent winners home with books, original artwork, gift certificates to Long Beach-area small businesses Portfolio and Fingerprints, an autographed Shepard Fairey poster and more.
The HEI-owned Hilton Long Beach fired five housekeepers, who say they were retaliated against for speaking up to management and participating in a state investigation into alleged tax and labor code violations at the Hotel.
"As a local business owner, I was thrilled to host the Hilton 5 fundraiser and to see so many community members enjoy our homemade pizza and craft beers in the name of justice for the housekeepers," said Sid Ghiassi, owner of Pizza Pi. "The influx of supporters was a boon to Tuesday night at Pizza Pi. Future events are welcome!"
"Although the HEI-owned Hilton may not care about these ladies’ financial well-being, the community does," said Joshua Jimenez, a hip-hop artist and Long Beach first-district resident. "And as a justice-seeking community, we will do whatever it takes to support the Hilton 5."
Two days before the housekeepers’ sudden dismissal, three of the five housekeepers confronted the Hilton’s human resources director about unfair working conditions. Some of the women had also recently participated in an on-going State investigation into their employment arrangement. All of the housekeepers were paid under-the-table without a legal paycheck.
The Hilton has stated the women were employed by a separate subcontractor with which Hilton ended its relationship due to "legal concerns." But housekeepers state that Hilton hired, supervised and fired them, and that for years they worked alongside other housekeepers, doing the same work and wearing the same uniform.
The only distinguishable difference was in the fired housekeepers’ paychecks, which were paid from a subcontractor’s account without payroll deductions required by law. The housekeepers also received no job-related benefits and received no sick days, vacation days or holidays as their Hilton co-workers did.
On June 15th 2011, members of UNITE HERE Local 75 rallied at the Metropolitan Hotel in the heart of Toronto’s Chinatown. Without a new collective agreement for over a year, the workers to the streets in pursuit of the same standard their Local 75 sisters and brothers have already achieved in many other major hotels in the GTA.
Hotel workers are the invisible backbone of the service sector. Over a number of collective agreements, Local 75 members have achieved a citywide standard that includes safer working conditions, greater job security, and decent wages and benefits. Job security is a key stumbling block in negotiations at the hotel.
"We can’t have people who have worked here for years come to work one day to find out they’re now part-time or working split shifts," says Sherma Regis, a Room Attendant at the Metropolitan Hotel. "How are we supposed to organize our lives around these kinds of conditions?"
"Hotels are a crucial part of the growing service sector in Toronto, and this is where a lot of women and new immigrants to Canada start out. If these jobs are going to be the backbone of our economy, they need to be liveable," says Ana Cunha, another Room Attendant at the Metropolitan Hotel. "Hotel jobs are still too difficult to give up anything we’ve already achieved. We won’t go backwards in this round of negotiations, not here, not anywhere."