Campus dining workers at DePaul University, members of UNITE HERE Local 1, voted to ratify a new contract on October 21. Their new agreement with Chartwells brings significantly improved wages, affordable family health care benefits, and language that protects immigrant workers.
"Even with all the obstacles that we went through, we stood together, and we got a great contract," said Chanteen Hardaway, a campus dining worker at DePaul.
DePaul students supported the workers with a campus-wide Living Wage campaign.
For more information on the food service industry on college and university campuses, visit the Stir It Up campaign’s website at www.stiritupcampaign.org.
Workers at the Radisson Suite Hotel Toronto Airport struck a picket line at dawn on October 21. The 52 workers have become the ninth group employed at hotels owned or operated by Westmont affiliates to take strike action.
Teresa Torres, a member of the union’s bargaining committee, explained, "we are reaching a boiling point inside the hotel. Workers in this hotel have been asked to do more and more work when I know that business is up, and Westmont could afford to start staffing the hotel properly again. We are tired of working so hard for so little. After all these years, we still make lower wages than other airport hotel workers for doing just as much work." Torres has worked as a houseperson in the hotel’s housekeeping department for 18 years.
The strike follows on the heels of nine one-day strike actions taken by Westmont workers at hotels throughout the GTA during the Toronto International Film Festival. The strikes attracted broad public support, particularly from the film industry, as workers urged large hotel companies like Westmont to share the economic recovery with immigrant families.
Citywide union hotel contracts expired more than a year ago, and hotel workers at the Chicago Hilton walked off the job on October 16, launching a three-day strike protesting Hilton’s efforts to lock workers into the recession. Outraged that Hilton finagled $180 million in bailout funds but is still squeezing workers, hundreds of workers picketed, wearing signs that read “Taxpayers on Strike”. The strike in Chicago joined strikes at the world’s largest Hiltons in Honolulu and San Francisco, which began earlier in the week.
“Hilton’s business is coming back, but it seems like they want housekeepers like me to live in the recession forever,” says Sherri Steverson, a room attendant at the Chicago Hilton downtown, one of Hilton Hotels’ largest owned hotels. “The bailout money was supposed to protect jobs, but Hilton is destroying them. I already have to take pain medication to get through the day, and the room-cleaning increases that Hilton is proposing for housekeepers at my hotel just might break me all together. ”
Hilton Worldwide, owned by one of Wall Street’s largest private equity firms – Blackstone – is taking unfair advantage of its workers and the American taxpayers. Hilton got $180 million of bailout funds not meant for wealthy hotel owners when the Federal Reserve wrote off some debt Hilton owed U.S. taxpayers. Meanwhile, Hilton wants lock workers into cheap recession contracts even as hotels rebound.
East Chicago, IN – After a year-long contract dispute with Ameristar, members of UNITE HERE Local 1 voted unanimously to ratify historic new contracts covering over 200 workers at the casino in East Chicago, Indiana. The contract settlement represents a major victory for workers at the casino, whose contracts expired on October 31, 2009.
Most significantly, the new contract includes language that protects jobs for Ameristar workers by guaranteeing limits on the use of part-time employees. Terms of the settlement also include retroactive raises across the board and first-time retirement benefits for Ameristar workers. Workers also were able to preserve health care coverage with no increases in costs to employees at a time when employers nationally are slashing employer-provided healthcare and raising health plan costs.
Ameristar workers have led a year-long campaign to raise awareness about the growing reliance on part-time workers to staff the casinos, leafleting, holding actions, and testifying before the Indiana Gaming Commission on the adverse effect of staffing cuts to the regional economy. The settlement, which limits the number of part-time workers with few or no benefits, will help to ensure that jobs in the Northwest Indiana gaming industry remain stable, middle-class jobs.
"This contract settlement is a victory for Ameristar workers and the region," says Jami Peterson, a bartender who has worked at Ameristar for the last 13 years. "When gaming came to Indiana over a dozen years ago, these casinos were supposed to provide good jobs to replace the ones that were moving overseas. Now we have protections in the contract that ensure that more and more of us can go to the doctor, get off of welfare, or retire with dignity."
More than three months after union hotel contracts expired, hotel workers at the Hilton Hawaiian Village – Hilton’s largest hotel worldwide with over 3,600 rooms and 1,500 union workers – walked off the job, announcing a five-day strike protesting Hilton’s efforts to lock workers into cheap recession contracts.
Outraged that Hilton finagled $180 million in bailout funds – taxpayer money that was meant to help stimulate the economy by creating jobs – while workers have endured staff cuts, reduced hours, and high injury rates, hundreds participated in the strike. The striking workers are members of UNITE HERE Local 5, and include housekeepers, dishwashers, cooks, bell staff, food servers, and others. Workers in Hawaii joined other striking Hilton workers in San Francisco who walked off the job on October 13.
“I’m not out here just for me. I’m a taxpayer too and I’m twice as upset over what the Hilton has done. This is not just about hotel workers, it’s about the future of our community. The taxpayer money that Hilton took was supposed to go towards helping to create jobs, and not be used to hurt workers in this economy. Hilton is just another predator of the recession. They line their pockets with taxpayer money and now they want even more from workers by using the economy as an excuse to eliminate jobs, increase our workload and lock us into a permanent recession. To me, that’s just being greedy,” said Debbie Tabar, an accounting clerk at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.
More than a year after union hotel contracts expired, 850 hotel workers at the Hilton Union Square, the nation’s second largest Hilton hotel, walked off the job at 4:00 a.m. on October 13. Workers announced a six-day strike protesting Hilton’s efforts to lock workers into permanent recessionary contracts, even after Hilton extracted $180 million in corporate breaks from taxpayers.
Hilton Worldwide, owned by one of Wall Street’s largest private equity firms – the Blackstone Group [NYSE: BX] – is taking unfair advantage of its workers and the American taxpayers. Blackstone owed about $320 million in debt to the Federal Reserve, but persuaded the agency to accept just $142 million in payment. Taxpayers bear the cost of the remaining $180 million. Chris Nassetta, CEO of Hilton Hotels recently described the effect of the debt deal on his company: “We were in good shape before and we’re in exceptionally good shape now.” (Hotel News Now, 9/28/2010). Meanwhile, Hilton workers face proposals that would increase family health care costs by hundreds of dollars a month, freeze pensions, reduce staffing and increase workloads.
Most recently, Blackstone proposed that housekeepers clean 20 rooms a day, instead of 14, a 40% increase in workload, under their Refresh Program. “We call it the Dirty Room Program,” said Guadalupe Chavez, a 30 –year housekeeper at Hilton Union Square. “They’ve already taken $180 million of our taxes and now they want us to subsidize them by lowering our standards at work and customers’ standards for a clean hotel.”
UNITE HERE members joined tens of thousands of union members from across the country at the "One Nation" rally in Washington, D.C. to call for restore economic justice and a renewal of the American Dream for all.
"The fight for economic justice is won in the streets. That’s what American history tells. By all means, vote on November 2nd. But on November 3rd, it’s time to go back to the streets," said UNITE HERE President John Wilhelm, addressing the crowd at an event before the rally.
As the NFL Players Association anticipates a potential lockout, Jets players and DeMaurice Smith (NFLPA executive director) met with UNITE HERE Local 100 members on September 23. Bill Granfield, Local 100 president, said Smith had been meeting with stadium workers all over the country because they will be just as affected by a lockout as team employees.
"Every labor union in the country has come out and indicated that this game is bigger than the hash marks," Smith said. He said that owners often talk about jobs as new stadiums are being built, and that those same jobs will be in jeopardy if there is a lockout. Click here to read more.
Watch the video below about UNITE HERE members in solidarity with the NFL Players’ Association.
Hyatt hotel workers announced they are calling for a boycott of their employer, Hyatt Regency Vancouver. Frustration among hotel workers has deepened as the global Hyatt Corporation continues to prosper, while it fails to demonstrate a commitment to providing quality jobs for their hotel workers.
Today’s announcement comes nearly three months after the expiration of workers’ contract on June 30. Hyatt workers will gather in front of the hotel, the site of several large demonstrations in recent months, to make their announcement. The boycott represents the latest escalation in a labour dispute with Hyatt locally and internationally. The Hyatt boycott in Vancouver will join fourteen other active boycotts of Hyatt properties in North America.
“I am calling for a boycott and asking guests not to eat, drink or sleep at the Hyatt. The boycott means that I’m making a sacrifice, since I may lose shifts. I am the main provider for my family since my husband is on medical leave, but I’m doing this for a better future in the long-term,” said Naden Abenes, a room attendant at the Vancouver Hyatt.
Hyatt serves as the starkest example of how global hotel companies prospered even during the recession. In one day, Hyatt Corporation’s owners made $900 million when they took the company public in November 2009. Meanwhile, Hyatt hotel workers have endured reduced hours, understaffing, and heavier workloads, which put workers at higher risk of injury.
Hotel workers at the Toronto Hilton (145 Richmond St. West) and the Hilton Toronto Airport (5875 Airport Rd) have staged a one-day walkout to protest cutbacks at the two hotels, owned by Westmont affiliates.
“They tell guests that all the food is fresh and wild, but more and more food is coming pre-prepared,” said Joe Drumonde, a cook at the Hilton Toronto Airport. “I spent years training as a chef. Not only are my skills being ignored, they’re cutting back hours for everyone in the kitchen. We can’t make enough of a living to raise our families.”
The hotels that have participated in the rotating one-day strikes during the last two weeks are all owned or managed by affiliates of Westmont. In total, Westmont employs over 2,000 members of UNITE HERE Local 75, the union representing hotel workers. Most of these workers have been without a new contract since February.