Demonstrating the pro-worker values that he will bring to the Presidency, Barack Obama will be sworn in to office wearing a tuxedo made by UNITE HERE members at Chicago’s Hart Schaffner Marx factory. President Elect Obama also chose a custom Hart Schaffner Marx suit to wear for his acceptance speech at the DNC. Hart Schaffner Marx has been a union shop for almost 100 years and is internationally known for its extremely high quality menswear.

As reported in The New York Times, UNITE HERE President Bruce Raynor says that from his conversations which include some with Mr. Obama, he expects the inaugural to be “upbeat and optimistic, not opulent or excessive.” You can read the full New York Times story here.

The start of the holiday shopping season also is the start of the most active time of year for charitable giving. But in the midst of an economic crisis, Americans are considering what, or even if, they can contribute to charity this year.

With that in mind, what about the notion that our shopping – the way we choose to spend our dollars – can create positive change? When you choose to buy a sweater for your son or socks for your sister, you can affect the world around you.

SweatFree Communities and the International Labor Rights Forum have released the"2009 Shop with a Conscience Consumer Guide,"; providing a list of sweatshop-free options for consumers who want to purchase shirts, pants, coats, scarves, hats and other apparel made under ethical conditions.

The guide profiles more than 20 companies that produce clothing in accordance with international fair labor standards, such as ensuring workers’ health and safety, living wages and good benefits, and treatment with respect and dignity. In addition, the guide promotes clothing produced in shops where workers are organized into democratic unions or worker-owned cooperatives and have an effective, collective voice in determining their wages and working conditions.

You can also buy union-made UNITEHERE gear at the UNITEHERE store

In the most important election of our lives UNITE HERE members are making sure that voters know their rights on Election Day.

In her two months as a volunteer political organizer in Virginia, Ida Randle of Memphis has experienced first-hand the type of misinformation inundating first-time voters. “We have met so many people who thought they could not vote! There have been many men who have had their voting rights taken away, they are very grateful when we share with them how they can restore their voting rights. With each person we help educate, we get one step closer to an Obama victory.”

We need to make sure that everyone in our communities knows they can vote. After you vote, volunteer! Please contact your shop steward.

Neisia Giles, a UNITE HERE Local 1 shop steward at US Cellular Field, has been volunteering for the Obama campaign in Virginia for two months. The mother of five decided to volunteer in order to be a role-model for younger generations. "I wanted to show my children and grandchildren about voting and the role that a union and one person can play in history." Being away from home has been hard, but it has been worth the effort. "Political activism is a great way to hold representatives accountable. It also really strengthens the union."

Neisia believes Obama is "the right person to lead our country in the right direction," and her volunteering has helped Obama take the lead in polls in Virginia. "The people we are registering-many are unaware that they can vote! We are helping them realize a dream while helping the country win a president we can be proud of."

Likewise volunteer political organizer Tony Evans of Local 2850 in Oakland found people, particularly young men, misinformed about their voting rights and how to exercise them. "When approaching young men about registering to vote, I commonly was asked how much does it cost to register and vote. I would tell them that it has already been paid for by the blood, sweat and determination of their grandparents."

Regino Romero is a cook at the Columbia Sussex-owned Hilton Hotel in Crystal City, Virginia, and his life as a single father was recently featured in a Washington Post story entitled “Life’s Basics More of a Stretch.”

“Although he has worked full time for nearly 14 years as a cook at the Hilton Crystal City hotel, he feeds his own family with help from a local food pantry,” says the Washington Post. [click here for a link to the article and photos]

Mr. Romero is a union leader at the forefront of a struggle by hotel workers to make hotel jobs middle class. The Hilton Crystal City is a unionized hotel, but after it was acquired by Columbia Sussex Hotels, the company proposed concessions in negotiations, like reducing benefits and increasing their costs, eliminating workers’ pension and seniority, and increasing workloads. The same company has also proposed concessions at the Baltimore Sheraton hotel and the Anchorage Hilton.

In recent years, Columbia Sussex has bought dozens of hotels in a buying spree that has created a large and indebted hotel company, owning more than 70 hotels. Meanwhile, its sister company Tropicana Entertainment is now in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings, having bought casinos heavily financed by debt. Both companies sought concessions from their workers to help pay for their buying sprees, and after a year-long fight, workers at the Las Vegas Tropicana successfully renewed their Las Vegas Dream contract on the same terms as other Las Vegas union workers.

An overwhelming majority of workers at Mr. Romero’s hotel and the Baltimore Sheraton have called for boycotts of their own hotels to prevent concessions and fight for jobs that allow them to support their families.

Richard Hoar is a shop steward at the Claremont Hotel and Resort in Oakland, CA who is volunteering with UNITE HERE’s Obama mobilization in Wisconsin.

"My friend and I would talk about politics, but it was frustrating to talk about it without going out to do something about it. When I took a leave from work to volunteer I told my coworkers, "I’m doing this for you."

Obama’s support of the Employee Free Choice Act and other pro-worker policies will help the whole country. Richard points out that his union local, Local 2850, gets an additional benefit from his volunteering. "Through the training we are getting on this I’ll be able to motivate my coworkers even better. On our next contract negotiation I want to have that room packed!"

So far, 335 UNITE HERE members have taken extended leaves from their jobs to make history by joining the union’s election mobilization. UNITE HERE members from around the country are coming together to door-knock and phone-bank for change this fall, reaching over 150,00 voters so far.

Denise Brown-Lipford of Local 25 has been registering voters in Norfolk Virginia for two months. She is motivated to volunteer because “the last eight years under George Bush have been a disaster for workers. If we are to restore our rights in the workplace we all have to do our part. Participating in this program has been one of the best experiences of my life. I have learned so much and met so many wonderful people”

Striking hotel workers at the Congress Plaza Hotel in Chicago organized for picketing action and protest with UNITE HERE Local 1 after learning that ‘America’s Next Top Model’ was holding auditions at the hotel. In early September, the popular reality television show announced that it would stage a local casting call at the Congress, but they moved auditions to a new venue two days prior to the big event and following outcry by strike supporters.

Congress strikers, UNITE HERE Local 1 and the Chicago and Los Angeles chapters of AFTRA coordinated extensive outreach to producers of the popular television show, executives of the CW television network, and Cover Girl make-up, a key sponsor of ‘America’s Next Top Model.’ Following a swarm of concerned phone calls and e-mails, producers of the show sent an e-mail to leaders of AFTRA LA, announcing that the event had been moved "due to the long-standing labor dispute with the Congress Plaza Hotel and its union workers." The show’s website posted a new location, the Hyatt Regency at McCormick Place, hours later.

Strikers from the Congress Plaza Hotel have been on strike for five years since June 15, 2003, after the hotel decided to freeze wages and slash benefits. Now the longest active strike in the country, striking workers braved five cold Chicago winters to ensure that hotel jobs in this city are strong, family-sustaining jobs.

Hotel Workers and LGBT community unite to fight discrimination against gays and lesbians and workers.>

On July 10th, UNITE HERE and LGBT leaders announced a full-scale boycott of the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego. The coalition is calling for Hyatt to take action to correct a record of discrimination against workers at the hotel. Manchester’s Hyatt forces housekeepers to clean more rooms than housekeepers at other some Hyatt hotels, and workers at the Manchester Hyatt have no job security if the hotel is sold. The owner of the hotel Douglas Manchester, has also funded discrimination against the LGBT community. Manchester donated $125,000 to a political committee supporting Proposition 8, a November ballot initiative in California that seeks to make it illegal for loving gay and lesbian couples to marry. Hyatt should fire Manchester for Discrimination!

http://www.gaylesbiantimes.com/?id=12573

http://www.cbs8.com/stories/story.134006.html

http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080710-9999-1m10boycott.html

Testimony Given By Emmanuel Torres, Son of Worker Killed at Cintas Plant; U.S. Representative “Appalled” at Cintas’ Lack of Responsibility

The U.S. House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections held a hearing today on workplace safety seeking stronger OSHA enforcement for large, multi-site employers. Members of the subcommittee named Cintas as a prime example of the need for stronger OSHA enforcement. The hearing was prompted by the death last year of Eleazar Torres Gomez, a worker who was killed at a Cintas plant in Tulsa, OK after he was trapped inside an industrial-sized dryer. Emmanuel Torres, Mr. Torres Gomez’ son (pictured — photo by Earl Dotter), testified at today’s hearing, stating that Cintas failed to do everything it was required to do to protect his father. At the hearing, citing internal company memos made public today, members of the committee strongly admonished Cintas’s top corporate leadership for failing to fix the lethal dangers it knew about that ultimately led to the death of Eleazar Torres Gomez.

“An internal memo dated April 30, 2004 notifies company officials—including regional health and safety coordinators—of ‘an incident that could have resulted in serious injury and possible death,’” said Subcommittee Chairwoman Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.). Although the memo outlined changes needed to remedy dangerous conditions, “[n]one of these promises were acted upon at the Tulsa facility,” according to the chairwoman.

The memo was issued by Cintas Health and Safety Director Rick Gerlach and addressed to top-level managers around the country. Accompanying this memo was an attachment from then Cintas President Scott Farmer, currently CEO of the company, describing two other incidents in 2000 where employees had climbed onto working laundry conveyors to clear jams and fell into a running washer. The 2004 memo was first made public in a Wall Street Journal article published in today’s edition of the paper.

Illinois Representative Phil Hare said, “I was appalled. . .by the total lack of responsibility that Cintas took for this accident and the way the company treated the Torres Gomez family.”  A company statement released by Cintas in the aftermath of the death was described as blaming the victim for his own death.

“The fact that Cintas blamed my father for what truly is a company wide problem is wrong,” said Emmanuel Torres.

Four current and one former Cintas workers attended the hearing and spoke at the press conference that preceded the hearing. They complained of mounting production pressures, repetitive stress injuries, and lack of training at their jobs.

“Even after the death in Tulsa, Cintas was still not safe.  By the time OSHA was done, there still was not enough training and staffing,” said Errol Ingram, a former maintenance supervisor from Mobile, Alabama, after the hearing.  OSHA has proposed nearly $200,000 in violations in Mobile for the same kinds of hazards that led to Mr. Torres Gomez’s death.

Eleazar Torres Gomez was killed in March 2007 after he was pulled by an unguarded, automated conveyor into an industrial drier.  He was trapped for 20 minutes in 300 degree heat.  Shortly after this tragedy, the Workforce Protections Subcommittee made its first of multiple requests for a company-wide OSHA investigation.

In addition to the $2.78 million dollar proposed fine for the violations in Tulsa, federal and state safety inspectors have issued citations for the same deadly dangers at Cintas laundries in Ohio, Alabama, California, and Washington, where a worker’s arm was nearly ripped off, since August 2007.  OSHA inspectors are investigating workers’ allegations that similar hazards exist in the company’s Bedford Park, Illinois facility.

Cintas workers throughout North America are standing with UNITE HERE and the Teamsters to gain better, safer jobs.  Currently, both unions represent roughly 400 Cintas workers.  For more information about Cintas workers’ efforts, visit www.uniformjustice.org and www.makeCINTASsafe.info.  

For more information, visit TheCommittee on Education and Labor Website at edlabor.house.gov/hearings/wp-2008-04-23.shtml.

Photo by Earl Dotter, www.earldotter.com.