Workers at the Sheraton Station Square in Pittsburgh are celebrating the settlement of a new contract. The four-year agreement was overwhelmingly ratified by the Sheraton workers 71 to 15 on Friday, May 13th.

The agreement includes wage increases, a back pay bonus, and preserves the health plan while limiting increases for the amount of money workers contribute. The agreement also includes: a one dollar increase for each additional room housekeepers do to $6 per room, increases to baggage handling and amenity delivery payments for bell staff, increased late-night pay for banquet servers, and the inclusion of “domestic partner” in the bereavement pay language.

Throughout the spring, Local 217 in Connecticut and Rhode Island has won numerous contract victories in both food service and hotels. Union members have ratified new contracts covering more than 600 workers, including: school cafeteria workers in East Bay and Newport (Rhode Island) and Meriden and West Hartford (Connecticut), campus dining workers at the University of Hartford, Wesleyan University and the Coast Guard Academy, convention center workers at the Dunkin Donuts Center in Providence, business and industry workers at Electric Boat in Groton and the Westin Hotel in Providence.

While the terms of the agreements vary, the new contracts secure progress on increased wages, improved job security and preserved our standards for healthcare coverage and cost.

UNITE HERE Local 483 hotel members and community allies rallied in support of the Asilomar Conference Grounds workers, Thursday, May 12. Two issues are currently at the forefront of these hotel workers’ concerns are onerous workloads an a 5-year wage freeze.:

1. Onerous workloads. Since ARAMARK took over operations in October 2009, the Asilomar housekeeper injury frequency is 3.3 times greater than the injury rate found for housekeepers at hotels across the nation in the February 2010 American Journal of Industrial Medicine study "Occupational injury disparities in the US hotel industry." For a summary of Asilomar housekeeper injuries under ARAMARK management, please see http://www.unitehere483.org/?p=227.

Wilma Cook, 9-year Asilomar housekeeper commented: "ARAMARK increased the number of rooms we have to clean. It’s wearing us down – faster and faster, bending, lifting, scrubbing. We have to fight back to protect our bodies and our ability to work!"

2. 5-Year wage freeze. Fortune 500 company ARAMARK is demanding another 5 years of frozen wages for Asilomar workers, who have not received an increase since May 2009.

"No wage increase for 5 years — I couldn’t believe my ears!" said 4-year Asilomar grounds worker, Richard "Chuck" Smith. "We are struggling as it is, but no raises for 5 more years? That will kill us. We can’t stand for it!"

ARAMARK is a Fortune 500 company based in Philadelphia. It reports $12.6 billion in sales revenue and more than $1 billion in profits for fiscal 2010.

Founded in 1937, UNITE HERE Local 483 represents 1,300 Monterey Bay area hospitality workers at two dozen hotels, restaurants, cafeterias, and golf courses.

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Founded in 1937, UNITE HERE Local 483 represents 1,300 Monterey Bay area hospitality workers at two dozen hotels, restaurants, cafeterias, and golf courses.

Hyatt housekeepers across the U.S. are out talking to community and business leaders, asking them to join housekeepers in sending a message to Hyatt to clean up its act.

Hyatt Hotels abuse housekeepers. Hyatt—a company run by billionaires–has eliminated jobs, replaced career housekeepers with minimum wage temporary workers, and imposed dangerous workloads on those who remain. Now Hyatt housekeepers from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Clara, Chicago, Boston, San Antonio, Phoenix, and Indianapolis are bringing their stories to the public, on calling on them for support.

Nearly all hotel housekeepers are women. The majority are women of color and immigrants. In a 2010 study of hotel worker injuries from 50 U.S. hotels published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, housekeepers working at Hyatt hotels had the highest injury rate of those hotels studied. Over time, cleaning hotel rooms can lead to debilitating injuries. Lifting mattresses that can weigh over 100 pounds or bending down to scrub bathroom floors all take a physical toll.

At some Hyatt hotels, room attendants clean as many as 30 rooms a day, nearly double what is typically required in union hotels. This workload leaves room attendants as little as 15 minutes to clean a room—that’s 15 minutes to make beds, scrub clean the toilet bowl, bathtub and all bathroom surfaces, dust, vacuum, empty the trash, change linens—among other things.

For more info, visit www.HotelWorkerRising.org.

In San Diego, 130 workers at the Westin Gaslamp Quarter have joined UNITE HERE Local 30. An overwhelming majority of workers signed cards in support of the union. Local 30’s Westin organizing comes on the heels of last year’s successful organizing drive at the 800-room Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The Westin committee began bargaining with Starwood last week for their first contract.

Union workers at Cal State University Monterey Bay Food Services, members of UNITE HERE Local 483, approved a 5-year labor contract, which calls for $2.05 per hour in additional wages over the life of the agreement.  The union members voted May 5 at CSUMB with 96% approval. The contract covers 60 Sodexo employees, including cooks, cashiers, waiters, bartenders, baristas, utility and food service workers.

"I am very happy that we got fair pay increases, because it’s been so hard to get by in this down economy," said David Palacios, a 3-year CSUMB cook and member of the Local 483 negotiating committee.

The agreement, the first at CSUMB with UNITE HERE Local 483, includes annual wage increases averaging $.40 per hour over the course of the 5-year contract. Food service workers, for example, would see a 24% overall increase in their hourly wages from $8.65 to $10.70. The contract also increases company contributions to the employee health insurance and pension plans, among other benefit improvements.

Contract negotiations at CSUMB Food Services between the Union and Paris-based Sodexo began in August of last year. The new contract starts this past May 1, 2011 with the first wage increases applied retroactively to November 1, 2010.

"The key to winning this was the determination of these CSUMB workers. It’s their first contract with our union, and we are proud to have them on board," commented Local 483 Vice President, Hector Azpilcueta.

On April 27, airport workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 30 overwhelmingly ratified a new contract with their employer, HMS Host, the airport concessions industry’s largest company. The new contract raises standards for Airport workers through guaranteed wage increases of over $2.50/hour over the next five years. The deal also strengthens the workers’ retirement plan and extends access to free, quality family healthcare coverage to all fulltime employees.

“This contract is just one part of airport workers’ long term effort to make airport jobs good jobs,” said Brigette Browning, President of UNITE HERE Local 30. “Now we are going to focus our energy to ensure working conditions and customer service standards at SAN are maintained by any new concessionaires that get selected. The traveling public in San Diego deserves nothing less.”

The new contract comes on the heels of the union’s successful lobbying last year to make worker retention a part of the RFP process. The San Diego County Regional Airport Authority unanimously demanded that worker retention programs be included with all competing proposals. The Airport Authority also provided additional weight to proposals that go beyond the basic retention requirements.

On April 21, the nurses of NNOC Texas/National Nurses United volunteered to provide San Antonio Hyatt workers free care outside the Grand Hyatt Hotel, where health insurance is costly and out of reach for many workers and their families.

There, hotel workers and allies, including Linda Chavez-Thompson, called on Hyatt to stop pushing workers onto the rolls of the uninsured and taxpayer-funded programs.

More than 140 campus dining workers at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) have won union representation, choosing to join UNITE HERE Local 11. Campus dining workers at LMU, the largest Catholic university on the West Coast, are employees of the multinational food service company Sodexo.

After a hard-fought campaign, the campus dining workers at LMU won union representation with UNITE HERE Local 11 on Tuesday, April 19th.  The workers at LMU will now prepare to negotiate a first contract.

"I’ve worked at LMU for 6 years and am so proud to have been part of winning the union. I love taking care of the students here and it was great to have their support. The opportunity for better wages and benefits will mean a lot to our families," said Tina Jones, a cashier at the C-Lion store at Loyola Marymount University.

The LMU workers, after months of organizing, are the seventh group of cafeteria workers at a college or university to win union representation with UNITE HERE in the past 5 months.

"My co-workers and I are excited to join with the thousands of other food service workers in UNITE HERE Local 11. We are stronger together and ready to negotiate our first contract," said Emmanuel Rodriguez, a cook in "The Lair" at Loyola Marymount University.

With UNITE HERE, the LMU workers join the leading union of food service workers in North America, joining dining workers from over 100 campuses across the United States and Canada. In joining UNITE HERE Local 11, the LMU workers join over 10,000 food service workers in Los Angeles and Orange counties including the campus dining workers at the University of Southern California and the California Institute of the Arts.

After 20 months of bargaining, UNITE HERE Local 1 and Starwood Hotels have reached settlements in Chicago. The agreement affects 1200 Starwood workers at the Sheraton Hotel, Westin Michigan Avenue, Westin River North, W Lakeshore, W City Center, and the Tremont, as well as approximately 2000 workers in 16 other hotels, where hotel operators have signed pattern agreements tied to the Sheraton contract.  Agreements were ratified by Starwood workers yesterday, April 19, 2011. Coming on the heels of a settlement with Hilton Worldwide in early March 2011, the agreement between UNITE HERE and Starwood represents another major breakthrough in citywide hotel negotiations and a path forward for hotel workers as the hospitality industry emerges from the recession.