On March 17, 100 workers and community members carried out a large demonstration around one of the Crowne Plaza Meadowlands’ biggest events of the year, its annual Beatles-tribute festival. Demonstrators picketed and distributed leaflets to describing the difficulties workers face and calling on the hotel’s owners, RosDev Group, to meet with workers to negotiate a fair contract.

For over two years, Canadian-based real estate giant RosDev Group, who acquired the Crowne Plaza location in Dec. 2004, has thwarted workers’ attempts to negotiate a contract that will ensure them decent wages, benefits and working conditions.

In fact, when RosDev took over at the location it unilaterally stripped union members of their seniority and robbed workers of hundreds of thousands of dollars of paid vacation. The National Labor Relations Board has declared RosDev’s actions illegal and ordered the company to pay workers, but RosDev refuses to comply or even to sit down with workers.

On March 14, 2007, Local 26 union members at Starwood’s Boston hotels overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike and boycott at the Starwood Boston hotels. Over 97% of votes cast were in favor of authorizing a strike and boycott.

While negotiations are ongoing, the negotiating committee of 50 Starwood workers is now authorized to call a strike or boycott if necessary. The contract covering the Sheraton Boston, Boston Park Plaza and Westin Waterfront Hotels has expired and the contract at the Westin Copley Place is set to expire on March 31, 2007. A strike at any of these properties can be called as early as April 1.

Over 1,400 Local 26 members are employed at these hotels. All other union hotels in Boston have signed "me too" agreements requiring them to accept the contract negotiated by Starwood and Local 26. There is no risk of strike, lockout or other labor unrest at the "me too" hotels.

Boston hotels are among the most profitable in North America. Hotel workers in Boston are fighting for affordable health insurance, good wages, safe working conditions and the ability to retire with dignity. Starwood hotel workers in cities across North America have achieved these goals. Workers in Boston deserve no less.

Over 150 members – with their families in tow – of Local 516 (American Apparel) and Local 1633 (Crown Laundry), both in Selma, Alabama participated in the Edmund Pettus Bridge march last weekend. UNITE HERE members were led by local presidents Jannie Thomas and Betty Williams and joined by President John Wilhelm and Ms. Willie Jones from the Southern Region.

The event marked the 42nd Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when 600 civil rights activists were attacked by state and local police as they marched across the bridge peacefully calling for African American voting rights in the state. The original march and others to follow are largely considered turning point events in the American civil rights movement.

"I was just seven years old when the original march took place "I really believe it’s important to keep the dream alive," said President Jannie Thomas. "Our goal is to continue to organize locals in the South and to keep our roots in the civil rights movement." Each year, UNITE HERE encourages its members to take an active role in the parade, and it had the largest turn-out of any union at this year’s events.

UNITE HERE represents approximately 450,000 workers in the hospitality, gaming, food service, laundry and garment and manufacturing industries in the United States and Canada.

Among the more than 100 attendees at the Feb. 15 were immigrant rights leaders, members of the LGBT and faith communities, and workers from other Washington State hotels and restaurants.

The Seattle Westin Hotel employs about 500 workers. For the past eight months, workers and community members have worked tirelessly to make hotel jobs good, family-wage jobs. Key wins for workers include job security, continuity of their health insurance coverage, substantial wage increases, a safer workload to prevent injures, and strong discrimination protections.

And in Sacramento, Hilton hotel workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 49, voted Feb. 8 to approve a new three-year contract with the Sacramento Hilton Arden West. Like the contract approved by Sacramento Sheraton workers in December, the new Hilton contract significantly raises wages and reduces housekeeper workload, and doubles the hotel’s contribution to employee healthcare over the three years of the contract. Raises for the months since the contract’s initial expiration will take effect immediately, and wages, benefits, and working conditions will be protected should the hotel be sold.

Contracts are set to expire at Sacramento’s three other major union hotels: the Radisson, the Clarion, and the Holiday Inn Capitol Plaza. Local 49 members will fight to see that workers at these hotels enjoy the same gains that Hilton and Sheraton workers can now count on.

According to a report by the Free Press, an Illinois mop-and-broom manufacturer bought Specialty Filaments Inc., a union brush maker located in Middlebury, VT, earlier this week. Production is expected to resume as soon as Monday, one month after production was halted. The court-approved sale includes a three-year contract with UNITE HERE Local 2524. The union ratified the contract Monday afternoon. The company plans to have 80 percent of the former company’s 175 workers back on the job within a year and has received preliminary approval from the Vermont Economic Progress Council for $758,806 in economic incentives for job creation and investment in new equipment.
 
Specialty Filaments was owned by Capital Resource Partners, a Boston investment firm. Specialty Filaments filed for bankruptcy earlier this month. The company makes plastic bristles, called filaments, for applications including toothbrushes, industrial brushes and cosmetics brushes.

”So far they’ve seemed very open with us and very cooperative. We’re getting off on the right foot," said Ernie Loring, UNITE HERE New England Joint Board representative.

“There’s no way we could have gotten it running without them,” Monahan said of the union workers. Tom Arsenault, a machine operator and union steward at the plant, was relieved to see the company sold. He said he is pleased to see a company buying the plant instead of an investment group.

San Jose, CA-"A new UNITE HERE report exposes low wages and poor working conditions for food service workers who work in cafeterias at high tech and biotech companies in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. These highly profitable companies provide lavish cafeteria services for their own staff, but subcontract the work to firms who pay so little that cafeteria workers often have to rely on government assistance for basic necessities like food and health care.

During a telephone press conference last week, author Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed, Bait and Switch) joined General President Bruce Raynor and food service workers from Guckenheimer Enterprises to outline the findings of the report. Findings of the report include: 23% of Guckenheimer workers surveyed rely on government funded health insurance or are uninsured; workers report going to work sick or not receiving adequate medical care for injuries on the job, potentially causing health risks to their customers; average weekly wages fall below what it costs a single adult to meet basic needs without public assistance; and, food service workers on average earn 69% less than the median income for the area.

For a PDF of the report, go to http://www.serviceworkersrising.org/documents/tale_of_2_economies.pdf.

Hotel workers were among over 2,000 demonstrators who closed Century Boulevard near the Los Angeles International Airport during evening rush hour on September 28 to demand an end to the exploitation of immigrant workers at nearby hotels. UNITE HERE and the We Are America Coalition sponsored the march and civil disobedience. The event was widely covered by the media, including MTV, which interviewed Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello before he was arrested along with over 400 others. "These hotel workers by the airport make 20 percent less wages than hotel workers around the rest of Los Angeles," Morello said. "We’re here to express our solidarity with them, to help them unionize and to help them close the gap between their sub-poverty wages and the millions and millions of dollars the people who own these hotels make."

For the full story, visit www.hotelworkersrising.org.

After almost two years of working without a contract, San Francisco hotel workers concluded a new contract this week with the Multi-Employer Group (MEG), that encompasses five years, three years forward and two years back. The contract grants higher wages, better pensions and full healthcare benefits to more than 4,200 members of UNITE HERE Local 2.

"It shows that when we start together fighting for our rights, we can keep whatever we deserve," said Rafael Leiva, 33, who delivers room service at the Hyatt Regency. Most importantly, the contract includes card check for all future hotels by all the MEG employers in San Francisco and in all of San Mateo County. Local 2 still faces the task for settling with a large number of hotels which are not in the MEG, including the San Francisco Marriott.

In Chicago, UNITE HERE Local 1 announced a tentative agreement with Starwood covering over 900 workers at five hotels. The agreement was reached Tuesday with Tishman Hotels, the owner of the Sheraton Chicago, and yesterday with Starwood Hotels, which owns and operates four other properties: Westin Michigan Avenue, the W City Center, the W Lakeshore Drive and the Tremont.

"We are very pleased to reach this settlement with Starwood. With the conclusion of bargaining, nearly 7,000 Chicago hotel workers will see major progress in wages, benefits and working conditions," said Henry Tamarin, President of UNITE HERE Local 1. "In addition, we expect to see a ripple effect as non-union hotel workers in Chicago also receive raises." The tentative Chicago agreement with Starwood parallels one reached with Hilton on August 31 and Hyatt on September 3. Another 11 Chicago properties have signed "me-too" agreements with the union. A "me-too" agreement means the hotels will adopt the same terms negotiated for the Starwood- managed properties.

And in Monterey, UNITE HERE Local 483 reached an excellent settlement with two Hyatts early this morning. The contract is a four-year agreement, with wage increases for non-tipped workers, an increase for health and welfare, pension increase, and other important language.

During a two-day organizing conference held in Cincinnati last weekend, approximately 500 UNITE HERE service sector members and staff gathered together to launch the Service Workers Rising! campaign, an effort to unite 100,000 UNITE HERE members employed in the Laundry, Airport concessions and the Food Service industries across North America. Service companies like Compass, Sodexho and Aramark are taking over the "non-core" work of food service, laundry, and cleaning from hospitals, universities and airports. These companies consider it all one industry, so UNITE HERE members are organizing into one strong division as well.

Members participated in breakout sessions during which they planned on how to increase organizing in their shops, and listened to presentations made by sector and affiliate leaders as well as General President Bruce Raynor and President/ Hospitality Industries John W. Wilhelm. Actor and activist Danny Glover joined civil-rights activist Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and several laundry workers on Saturday to offer his support and to highlight some of the abuses committed by Cintas, the uniform and laundry company with headquarters in Cincinnati.

"It’s shameful that I have to stand here, that all of us have to be here and talk about [the labor abuses committed by Cintas]," said Glover during the press conference. "There’s just so many other things we need to talk about in the world, in our communities, in elevating those communities," said Glover, "because what we have here are people who deserve the opportunity to live their lives in dignity."

Cintas recently announced plans to stop processing laundry at its Detroit plant, one of the few where Cintas workers have a voice through a union. Susan Amos, who has worked at the Detroit plant for the last 18 years, said, "I think Cintas still has a problem with discrimination. They made some moves to take the heat off after these lawsuits started. But the better jobs still mostly go to white men. The people losing our jobs are almost all African-American."

For more information on Service Workers Rising and its campaigns, go to www.serviceworkersrising.org.