UNITE HERE will join GSOC/UAW members for a major rally in New York City on Thursday, January 26th at 4PM, in front of NYU’s Bobst Library, 70 Washington Square Park. Please contact Ed Vargas at (212) 265-7000 for further details.

Graduate student workers at New York University (NYU) have been on strike since November 9th, fighting for a union and a fair contract. The graduate students at NYU, through United Auto Workers, won the first contract for graduate assistants at a private university in 2002. But the university is refusing to bargain a second contract, hiding behind the Bush NLRB decision that stripped these workers of their organizing rights. Faced with the massive disruption and pressure of the strike, the NYU administration has resorted to outright threats and intimidation. In spite of the university’s threats, GSOC/UAW members have remained on strike and are determined to win a fair second contract. This strike at NYU has major implications for the efforts of Yale graduate workers to join UNITE HERE. If the University wins, it would set a chilling atmosphere for organizing campaigns around the country.

The UNITE HERE Hotel Workers Rising campaign represents an effort to empower thousands of hotel workers employed in cities across North America as they work to improve their jobs and secure better lives for themselves and their families. In recent decades, the hotel industry has transformed from locally owned and operated businesses, into one that is dominated by multimillion dollar national and international corporations. Hotel companies such as Hilton and Marriott are present in every major city, and employ hundreds of thousands of workers. These workers–largely minority and immigrant women–work hard to create a welcoming home away from home for business travelers and tourists. But still they find it difficult to realize the American Dream. The injuries and pain caused by inhumane workloads, coupled with low wages and reduced healthcare and other benefits, mean that these workers cannot break out of poverty.

But these workers are fighting back! Hotel workers are uniting across North America to send a message to hotel companies: We are determined to make our jobs safer, middle-class jobs on which we can support our families. This year, hotel workers across the United States and Canada will be asking for support from community leaders, union members, and allies to help them improve their lives. Beginning with a campaign kick-off tour of several cities in the United States this February, the Hotel Workers Rising campaign will invite people from all walks of life to join this important movement.

Go to www.hotelworkersrising.org to read recent news coverage, as well as to take action!

Toronto, Ontario-"Employees from York University’s largest cafeteria operator, Sodexho, have voted overwhelmingly to join UNITE HERE. The York University workers are following the lead of workers in other major cafeteria-operating companies at other universities. "Sodexho workers need more dignity on the job," says Courtney Radic, UNITE HERE organizing director. UNITE HERE would like to implement a formal code of conduct to prevent harassment and discrimination in the workplace. Sodexho, along with other major companies, are contracted to offer cafeteria services on campus. Several food outlets are served by a single central kitchen facility to save on costs.

New York, NY–The surviving employees of Windows on the World, the 107th-floor restaurant obliterated in the World Trade Center attacks, opened a restaurant near Ground Zero on January 5, 2006. –

Toronto, Ontario-"A majority of 100 drivers, driver/helpers and warehouse workers of Sleep Country Canada’s Toronto distribution center voted this week to be represented by UNITE HERE. Sleep Country is Canada’s leading, and best-known, specialty retailer of mattresses. Best known? The entire nation can sing their advertising jingle by heart.

Despite Sleep Country’s great commercial success, drivers, driver/helpers and warehouse workers were quick to sign up for union representation: they were especially concerned about increasing workload and no seniority rights. First contract negotiations are to begin immediately.

In a successful event held on Saturday, December 3, UNITE HERE union members joined Toronto hotel workers, local labor leaders, celebrities, and community leaders to publicly support a campaign to raise the standard of living for hotel workers across the city and internationally. Actor and activist Danny Glover, Mayor David Miller,UNITE HERE President Bruce Raynor, Local 75 President Paul Clifford and various hotel workers hosted a press conference to explain the main issues at stake. -�Hotel workers should not have to work two jobs, sacrifice our health and have our children live in poverty,-� said hotel worker Zeleda Davis, also a UNITE HERE Local 75 member. -�We have a vision that we would create good jobs, promotional and training opportunities so that workers like me can live and retire with dignity and security.-�

-�The hotel sector is prospering and it must not exploit the hardworking men and women, immigrants and people of color who provide the services to make their profits possible,-� said Danny Glover. -�Raising standards of living will benefit hotel workers and their communities and enable them to provide the first class services that make the tourism industry work in Toronto and in cities across North America.-�

To read more about the international UNITE HERE hotel workers campaign, visit www.hotelworkersunited.org.

Montreal, Quebec-"On November 30, the 4,000 members of the men’s clothing industry affiliated with the UNITE HERE Quebec Council ratified a new master collective agreement that will govern various industry employers.

The agreement provides important improvements to workers’ wages, insurance and pension benefits, and provides restrictions on the use of temporary workers. "Given the economic context, the negotiation of this collective agreement was very difficult, but extremely important for our members," said Lina Aristeo, director of the UNITE HERE Quebec Council. This is the first time in over a decade that this contract was ratified without a strike. Instead, members fought in their shops with a -�negotiation survival kit-� which included whistles, bandannas, buttons and instruction sheets for daily actions.

St. Paul, MN-"On November 18, UNITE HERE Local 17 members voted to accept a new contract with HMS Host at the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport, following several months of tense negotiations. Highlights include maintaining current health insurance with no added costs to members, improvements to vacation language, a $25 monthly Perfect Attendance/Mass Transit reimbursement, training pay language, voluntary layoff language, improvements to bereavement language and decent wage increases for all members over the term of the agreement.

Carrying signs reading "O’Hare Airport Starbucks Unfair to Workers," hundreds of UNITE HERE Local 1 restaurant workers at O’Hare picketed in front of the airport terminals for three weeks in October to wrap up their seven-month contract fight. The 900 HMS Host workers joined Local 1 in February to build a stronger Union. Since then, the workers have been building their committee and engaging in actions to win their best contract yet. Highlights include a $2.40 wage increase over four years for the non-tipped workers and a decrease in the workers’ monthly copays for health insurance from $90 to $19 for individual coverage and from $250 to $85 for family coverage.

"We fought hard for the best contract since we’ve been working at the airport. Now we need to make the contract work for us and keep moving forward toward the contract fight in 2009," said Boddrick Barnes, a cook at Fox Sky Box at O’Hare and a member of the negotiating committee.

On Wednesday, November 16, 2005, the workers at the Fairmont Royal York voted to ratify a renewed three-year collective agreement. It covers virtually all the frontline service staff -" 850 cooks, stewards, room attendants, housepersons, servers, laundry, bell, door, valet, switchboard and bartenders. "This agreement is good for Royal York workers, good for the city’s hotel industry and good for Toronto. It contains a fair wage increase, excellent benefits, a more humane workload, and the promise of better jobs for current and future hotel workers," says Paul Clifford, President, UNITE HERE Local 75.

Wage increases ranged from 9.3% to 10.5% over three years, with the lowest paid non-gratuity classifications getting the larger raises. In response to the Union’s "Stop the Pain" campaign, the workload for room attendants was reduced and Health and Safety provisions strengthened. The Fairmont Royal York contract sets new, higher standards for thousands of the city’s hotel workers.