Author Archives for Ann Kammerer
Hundreds of workers, students, clergy and community members will take to the streets on Friday, March 30, celebrating the legacy of Cesar Chavez by calling for justice and peace for food service workers organizing a union at Pomona College.
The call for peace comes after a prolonged period of bitter conflict on the prestigious Inland Valley campus. Unprovoked by any federal agency and in the middle of a union organizing drive, Pomona College administration demanded late last year that workers produce documents proving their eligibility to work in the United States. Less than one month later, the college fired 16 dining hall workers. The decision terrorized immigrants and turned Pomona College into a battleground with protests, vigils, boycotts of dining halls and more. Hundreds of alumni have pledged not to donate to Pomona College.
Now, supporters are calling on Pomona College to sign a neutrality pledge, to allow Pomona dining workers to decide among themselves whether they want a union, in an atmosphere free from threats and intimidation.
Relondo Araiza is a dining hall worker who called for a fair process to organize a union.
"All we want is for our voices to be heard,” said Araiza. "Because Pomona is a great college, where ideas matter, and students learn to say what they think, we thought our voices would count, too."
Read news coverage of the event:
Pebble Beach, CA — UNITE HERE Local 483 members at the prestigious Lodge at Pebble Beach voted overwhelmingly to approve a 5-year labor contract Tuesday evening, March 27. Approximately 94% of the voting members approved the agreement, calling for a minimum of $1.90 per hour in additional wages for non-tipped workers over the span of the contract, as well as increases in Pebble Beach’s health insurance and pension contributions. The new Lodge contract covers 375 employees at the hotel, including housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers, servers, maintenance, and banquet workers.
“This [contract] gives our employees and their families financial, health, and retirement security, which they really need during these difficult times,” said David Heuck, Pebble Beach Company’s Executive Vice President and CFO, who led the company negotiations for the Hotel.
In terms of health insurance and pension contributions, the new contract at The Lodge at Pebble Beach matches the area standard of six previous union agreements dating as far back as July 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Monterey, Highlands Inn, Monterey Beach Resort, Bay Park Hotel, Asilomar Conference Center, and Hilton Garden Inn. In total, the new Local 483 contracts cover approximately 1,200 hospitality workers on the Monterey Peninsula.
“The Pebble Beach workers and Pebble Beach Company have taken a significant step forward toward making hospitality jobs middle-class jobs,” commented UNITEHERE! Local 483 Secretary-Treasurer and lead negotiator, Leonard O’Neill.
The Lodge at Pebble Beach is owned and operated by the Pebble Beach Company.
Founded in 1937, UNITEHERE! Local 483 represents 1,200 Monterey Bay area hospitality workers at two dozen hotels, restaurants, cafeterias, and golf courses.
(Photo by Robert Campbell cc)
160 workers from SSP America at the Sacramento International Airport won recognition with UNITE HERE Local 49 under a card check agreement. The victory is the culmination of a four-year campaign for labor peace at the Sacramento airport.
The organizing was led by a committee of SSP workers as well as additional volunteer organizers from Local 49, including leaders from HMS Host, and further help from San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.
To read more about their victory:
National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is in Las Vegas today to pledge his support for Station Casino workers involved in the country’s largest private sector organizing drive.
Since the 2007, management-led buyout allowed thirteen insiders to take $660 million out of the company, workers at Station Casinos have not had a raise, have had the cost of their health insurance increased, and have seen the loss of thousands of jobs.
Michael Wagner, a bartender at Green Valley Ranch, explained by saying, “All workers in Las Vegas should have job security, good wages, and solid healthcare. I want Stations to respect me and my right to organize.”
Workers at Station Casinos came together to publicly demanded to organize freely in February of 2010, but rather than agree to a fair process free of managerial interference to decide whether to have union representation, Station launched a vicious anti-union campaign including TV and print advertisements against the Culinary Union Local 226 of UNITE HERE.
President Trumka and other community leaders agreed they were eager to support the demand justice for Stations Casinos workers who deserve better wages and affordable health insurance.
Read more here….
48 campus dining workers at California Lutheran University have voted to unionize and join UNITE HERE Local 11. Food service workers at the Thousand Oaks, CA school, outside of Los Angeles, are employees of the multinational food service company Sodexo. Workers voted overwhelmingly on March 21st to join the union.
CLU is the latest in a string of campuses where dining hall workers have decided to join UNITE HERE to be able to negotiate for better wages, more affordable health care, and fairness at work.
Campus dining workers at the University of New Mexico ratified their first-ever union contract on March 9th. The approximately 80 workers employed by Chartwells, a division of Compass, had won union recognition in December 2011. This is the first UNITE HERE union workplace in the state of New Mexico!
The first-time contract includes protections for seniority; job security and guaranteed recall after summer, spring and winter breaks; and economic wage parity with the other university workers. The UNM Board of Regents passed a $9 minimum wage for direct campus employees but it did not cover the subcontracted food service workers who were subject only to the state minimum wage of $7.50. The new union contract includes $1.50 an hour in wage increases for all the workers and upgrades the Chartwells minimum wage to match the $9.00 UNM standard.
Over 100 Space Needle workers and community allies held a spirited rally in pouring rain under the shadow of Seattle’s signature icon yesterday. Five weeks before the Space Needle’s grand 50th anniversary celebration, they all call on the owners of this international symbol of Seattle to support living wages, good benefits and job security for the people who work there.
In recent bargaining sessions, the Space Needle has proposed subcontracting its workforce, a practice known as outsourcing. "In other words," said Sanjeet Thebe, a server assistant at the Space Needle, "I could be replaced any day with temporary workers making lower wages and no benefits. Living under this stress has not been good—for me and for my family.”
The Space Needle and the workers have been in negotiations since May 2011. On February 9th, Space Needle workers overwhelmingly rejected a "last and final" proposal by management that did not include protections from subcontracting. Space Needle workers and management now turn to Federal Mediation, with the first session to take place in the end of March.
Each year the Space Needle attracts over a million visitors making it one of the top tourist destinations in the region. The Needle’s Sky City Restaurant is the most patronized in Seattle with dinners costing as much as $60 a plate. Space Needle workers have stood together and fought for years to achieve excellent wages and benefits at the icon of Seattle.
For the past 50 years the Space Needle has stood for good jobs and dignity and respect for workers. With outsourcing looming at the symbol of Seattle, the next 50 years could stand for poverty. That’s why Space Needle and other hospitality workers in Seattle are deciding to stand up and fight back.
For some media coverage of the event, click here and here.
Learn more at the Justice at the Needle Facebook page.
From: Orange County Register
By: Samantha Schaefer, March 7, 2012
“A former housekeeper at Embassy Suites Irvine has been awarded a $70,000 settlement in a workers compensation case against the hotel.
Maribel Duarte, a Tustin resident and housekeeper for 16 years at Embassy Suites, won the settlement earlier this year for injuries sustained in 2009 and 2010 at the hotel. The company also reimbursed the state Employment Development Department for $6,100 and paid Duarte’s medical bills, which were more than $25,000, said David Goldstein, Duarte’s attorney. Duarte injured her neck, arms and legs from repetitive motion from cleaning hotel rooms, injuries which a doctor found to be completely work related.”
Click here to read the entire story.
Aramark workers at Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park have won a new collective bargaining agreement. Members of UNITE HERE Local 274 voted in favor of the new contract by an overwhelming margin.
The contract, which runs until 2016, brings historic raises, improves workers ability to work continuously during homestands, creates a better system for health insurance and improves contract language covering seniority, time-off, and union rights.
"This is our victory" says Briheem Douglas, who works in Concessions at CBP. "We got something for everyone in every department. That shows unity."
Denise Pane, a Suite Attendant, said, "We stood up and fought for what we believed in. It is a good feeling to vote yes for a good contract at Citizens Bank Park."
UNITE HERE Local 54 members voted overwhelmingly to approve a new three-year contract with the Atlantic Club in Atlantic City. The new contract covers over 600 cooks, housekeepers, bartenders, cocktail servers and other service workers at the Atlantic Club. With the new agreement workers will continue to receive free health care and an employer-sponsored defined benefit pension.