Author Archives for Ann Kammerer
On March 30, workers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport’s HMSHost ratified their first union contract. HMSHost operates food and beverage concessions (restaurants, fast food, coffee shops) at the Atlanta airport and at many other airports around the country.
The agreement, covering 800 workers, is the first-ever union contract for Atlanta airport concessions workers. Highlights of it include across-the-board wage increases, lower employee health insurance costs, more paid time off, and better meal reimbursements.
"Now we have the power to enforce our rights," explained HMSHost utility worker Roger Craft, adding, "now we’ll want to do our jobs better because we will feel more involved in our job."
Nearly 500 people gathered to watch as UNITE HERE, the New York City Fire Department, city officials, workers and school children commemorated the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. The fire claimed the lives of 146 immigrant garment workers, mostly young women.
Among those officials who joined UNITE HERE General President Bruce Raynor in marking the anniversary of the tragedy were His Eminence, Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York; New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn; and New York City Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta.
The fire at Triangle Waist Company, located in New York City’s Greenwich Village, was one of the worst industrial tragedies in our nation’s history, and, until September 11, 2001, it was the city’s deadliest workplace disaster.
The tragedy marked a turning point in the city’s fire safety efforts and in the struggle by workers to organize for safer, more just working conditions. It remains significant to this day, highlighting dangerous, inhumane conditions that workers continue to face.
Read more: http://www.unitehere.org/presscenter/release.php?ID=3065
At a huge rally in Las Vegas last Friday, over 5,000 members of Culinary Workers Union Local 226 committed to fight for a fair, new contract and received the support of presidential candidates. Local 226 is negotiating new contracts covering over 50,000 workers employed in Las Vegas casinos. The workers’ current contract expires May 31. Raising wages, maintaining free healthcare, and preserving the ‘Las Vegas Dream’ are among the union?s top priorities.
Accompanied on stage by members clad in red UNITE HERE gear, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, addressed the boisterous crowd, promising to stand with union members during their contract fight. The candidate appearances also underscored Local 226’s importance in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary. As the Las Vegas Sun put it, with Nevada’s Presidential Caucus scheduled for early 2008, "the road to Democratic victory next January is probably going to go through a union hall on Commerce Street in downtown Las Vegas."
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.
BANGOR, PA, Feb. 28, 2007 – Five hundred manufacturing jobs will stay put at the Majestic Athletics apparel plant, thanks to a deal struck by VF Corp., who recently acquired Majestic, and UNITE HERE, the union representing plant workers. The agreement ensures that VF Corp. will continue operation in the area, employing 500 workers who have for years produced all official Major League Baseball uniforms.
“Making the uniforms here is a tradition that our community, Pennsylvania, and Major League Baseball can all take pride in. And we are so glad that it will continue,” explained Gail Meyer, associate manager of the Pennsylvania Joint Board of UNITE HERE. “We can keep making great uniforms for America’s pastime, and players and fans can take heart knowing that the game is still played in apparel crafted by productive American workers. It’s a homerun for all of us.”
Under the deal, job security for workers is certain until June 2010, when their current labor contract expires. It also includes wage increases and continued health benefits. Workers at seven Lehigh Valley locations are covered by the contract.
The assurance of job security was welcome news for area residents and those who will continue to work, now under the management of VF Corporation. “We have worked hard to outfit the Major League teams and we’ve felt that the whole community has bragging rights for it – now we can keep on bragging,” said Mary Remel, a UNITE HERE member who has worked in shipping and receiving at Majestic.
“The continuity also means that the teams can count on the same fast turn-around and excellent craftsmanship they’ve come to expect from our workers,” adds Meyer.
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.