Hundreds of workers at the Hyatt West Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles went on strike today in protest of the hotel’s refusal to return the thousands of dollars in healthcare co-pays the hotel collected from the workers over a period of eight months after their contract expired in April. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) now alleges that the hotels collected this money illegally. Approximately 500 of the nearly 3,000 housekeepers, bellman, dishwashers, waiters, and other hotel workers at the employer council hotels lost their health insurance because they did not or could not make payments.

The NLRB will be taking the hotels to trial because of their findings that the hotels bargained with the union in bad faith, but litigation can take years. The Los Angeles hotel workers need their money now. Workers hope the 2-week strike will convince the hotels to return their money and teach them that they must obey the law.

Hundreds of workers walked off the job early this morning, leaving hotel managers scrambling to tend to guests. Workers from the other six Employer’s Council hotels, elected officials, community supporters, and labor leaders will meet at the Hyatt West Hollywood at 5:00PM to join the Hyatt West Hollywood workers picket line and rally.

Prior to the strike, hotel workers in Los Angeles achieved significant victories in their yearlong contract fight last month when the unity of the L. A. Hotel Employer’s Council (EC) was broken by two actions–the General Manager of the Wilshire Grand Hotel, an EC member, agreed with Local 11 that the EC hotels should accept the 2004-2006 agreement the union has already signed with six other L.A. hotels and the EC shrank from eight to seven hotels after the former Hyatt Regency Downtown was acquired by a new owner, who, not being bound by the EC’s rules, signed a 2004-2006 agreement with Local 11.

The Wilshire Grand’s action established a precedent that other EC hotels may follow. In recent days, the Millennium Biltmore hotel has joined the Wilshire Grand hotel in agreeing to accept a 2006 contract, even though both are prohibited from signing such deals because they have committed to joint negotiations with the five other hotels.

For more information, visit www.HotelWorkersUnited.org

Illinois: In Illinois, housekeepers have been standing up for justice on the job. Hotel room attendants -" mostly women -" have been facing increasingly heavy workloads, leading to injury and exhaustion on the job. Room attendants are starting to fight back.

Locals 1, 450 and the Midwest Joint Board backed state legislation that would require hotels to give hotel room attendants two paid 15-minute breaks per day. Under the sponsorship of State Rep. John Fritchey, the bill passed through the State House of Representatives in April. It was referred to the State Senate, sponsored by Sen. Ira Silverstein.

Local 1 swung into action and planned a lobby day in Springfield in early May. On May 4th, 120 Local 1 members took a day off without pay, and rode buses 200 miles to the State Capitol in Springfield to lobby for the bill.

Hotel workers packed the Senate Labor Committee hearing that afternoon. Local 1 President Henry Tamarin testified in favor of the bill, and the committee voted in favor of it. After a preliminary unsuccessful vote, the Senate President Emil Jones and Asst. Majority Leader Jim DeLeo worked hard to line up the 30 votes to pass the bill on May 20.

Subject to the approval of the Governor, Cook County hotel room attendants will be the only workers in the State of Illinois with paid rest breaks. This law will be an exciting new opportunity for room attendants to stand up for a fair workload. Local 1 will continue to build a strong committee of housekeeper leaders to lead the fight.

Philadelphia, PA — On Monday, May 23rd, members of UNITE HERE Local 274 ratified a new three-year contract with the Hilton Garden Inn. The new contract was ratified overwhelmingly during meetings held at the hotel. UNITE HERE Philadelphia Joint Board Director Lynne Fox was the chief negotiator for the union. "My coworkers and I are very excited about our new contract," said Deborah Blunt Hill, a member of the Bargaining Committee and a housekeeper, at the end of the ratification meeting. "Everybody worked so hard and showed so much solidarity. We won and we are looking forward to June 1st when this goes into effect. We wore buttons, marched in the street and stood strong as a group and it paid off." The new contract contains many improvements including expanded health insurance coverage that includes the members’ children and spouses. Read more.

And also last week, over 300 food service workers at the Pennsylvania Convention Center voted to join UNITE HERE. The new members are employed by catering giant ARAMARK Corporation, which has approximately 200,000 workers worldwide, and will be part of the UNITE HERE Philadelphia Joint Board. These food service members are part of the quickly growing industrial sector within the union now known as the UNITE HERE Multi-Services Division, which includes food service, airports and laundry workers across the United States and Canada.

On Tuesday, May 31, UNITE HERE Local 2 and the Multi-Employer Group (MEG) representing fourteen San Francisco hotels headed back to the bargaining table for the first time in three and a half months. Local 2 members had been waiting for a response to their latest contract offer made to the hotels on February 14th.

The MEG’s latest proposal fails to address any of the core issues for Local 2 members such as continued comprehensive health care, fair wage increases, fully funded pensions and card check neutrality. Instead, the only proposal the MEG made on Tuesday was regarding co-payments for doctor and emergency room visits. The MEG proposed a $10 co-payment per office visit (their previous proposal was $15) and a $20 co-payment for each emergency room visit (their previous proposal was $75 for active members and $50 for retirees). Local 2 members currently pay $5 per office or emergency room visit.

The employers continue to keep proposals on the table that would a) eliminate health care coverage for hundreds of members and their families; b) make no improvement in pensions; and c) fail to provide fair wage increases.

Meanwhile, the boycott of the MEG hotels is having dramatic impact on hotel business. Large convention, conference and meeting customers continue to cancel their events scheduled at the 14 hotels. Most recently, the Young Democrats of America pulled their biennial national convention to be held in August out of the St. Francis Hotel. The Gay Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation moved their 16th Annual Media Awards Event which will be held in June out of the St. Francis Hotel to Fort Mason. Business for Social Responsibility, an organization that helps companies leverage corporate ethical behavior, is moving its 2005 meeting out of the San Francisco Hilton.

Additionally, the American Federation of Teachers, which has a convention of several thousand people scheduled for July 2006, recently sent a letter to the MEG hotels stating that they will move their convention if the labor dispute is not resolved by August 1st. The convention will require 13,000 rooms and is worth $3 – $4 million to the hotels.

Local 2 members and allies continue to hold regular picket lines at the 14 MEG hotels, engage in leafleting at the hotels and participate in delegations to hotel customers to inform the public about the labor dispute and boycott.

The next bargaining session is scheduled for June 8. Local 2’s next large-scale demonstration and picket lines will be held June 9. Participants will congregate on Market Street next to the Four Seasons Hotel at 4:15pm.

Los Angeles–Hotel workers in Los Angeles achieved significant victories in their yearlong contract fight last month. The unity of the L. A. Hotel Employer’s Council (EC) was recently broken when the General Manager of the Wilshire Grand Hotel agreed with Local 11 that the EC hotels should accept the 2004-2006 agreement that the union has already signed with six other L.A. hotels. While legally prevented from negotiating separately with Local 11 by virtue of EC membership, individual EC members can still express opinions as to the course the hotel group should follow in negotiations. As a result, Local 11 has agreed to no longer actively implement the boycott of the Wilshire Grand, which has lost an estimated $2.1 million in revenues. The Wilshire Grand’s action establishes a precedent that other EC hotels may follow.

Second, the EC shrank from eight to seven hotels after the former Hyatt Regency Downtown was acquired by a new owner, who, not being bound by the EC’s rules, signed a 2004-2006 agreement with Local 11. The hotel will now fly a Sheraton flag but will not be operated by Starwood. Moreover, as a signatory to a collective bargaining agreement with Local 11 the hotel will no longer be subject to a boycott.

In the face of the split in the EC, the increasing number of hotels that have signed onto the 2004-2006 contract and the powerful solidarity among Local 11 members, the EC’s recent 4-year proposal, freighted with -�signing bonuses-� and wage improvements, is essentially a dead letter.

Visit HotelWorkersUnited.org for more information.

Hotel workers in Los Angeles achieved two significant victories in their contract fight this week. First, the LA Hotel Employers’ Council (EC) shrank from eight to seven hotels when the former Hyatt Regency Downtown was acquired by a new owner, who, not being bound by the EC’s rules, signed the 2004-2006 agreement with Local 11. The hotel will now fly a Sheraton flag but will not be operated by Starwood. Moreover, as a signatory to a collective bargaining agreement with Local 11 the hotel will no longer be subject to a boycott. This is the seventh L.A. hotel to sign a 2006contract. Second, a split in the solidarity of the EC was achieved when the General Manager of the Wilshire Grand Hotel agreed with Local 11 to advocate that the EC hotels accept the union’s contract proposal with a 2006 expiration. While legally prevented from negotiating separately with Local 11 by virtue of membership in the EC, EC members can still express an opinion as to the course the council should follow. Local 11 has agreed to no longer actively implement the boycott of the Wilshire Grand, which had lost an estimated $2.1 million in revenues.

Kahuku, HI -" Turtle Bay workers walked off the job early Saturday morning to protest abusive working conditions for housekeepers and other health and safety issues for laundry and Palm Terrace restaurant workers. At around 3AM, the union delivered a letter to the manager on duty stating that workers were going on strike until 11:59 pm or until management agreed to commit in writing to resolve the issues raised. Since there is no union contract in place, workers cannot take their grievances to arbitration. However, without a contract, workers are not restricted from taking other actions, such as stopping work, in order to resolve their grievances. A recent survey of housekeepers conducted by the union revealed that 81% of Turtle Bay housekeeping workers experience pain on the job, 69% take pain medication at least weekly and 56% have trouble sleeping because of pain. Because of excessive workloads, 59% of housekeepers take less than their full 30 minute break and 21% take no break at all. For more information about the Turtle Bay Boycott, go to www.turtlebayboycott.info.

The state of Connecticut spends millions of dollars each year buying or renting uniforms for its state employees, and the state’s public university systems license tens of millions of dollars worth of apparel each year. Following the precedent set by states, cities, and universities across the U.S., Connecticut is considering a law that would make it illegal for the state government and public universities to support sweatshops through their purchases with public dollars. While some of the uniforms worn by state employees are made in workplaces where workers have a voice on the job, earn a living wage, and receive decent treatment, this is not the case for all contracts. In fact, most of the workers producing apparel purchased and licensed by state agencies and universities are made in sweatshop factories where workers earn a poverty wage and are forced to work overtime. There are also widespread violations of the workers’ rights to freedom of association and there is commonly intimidation and abuse on the job. Connecticut must take responsibility now to ensure that the products it buys with our tax dollars are not subsidizing sweatshop labor! To take action, go to action.unitehere.org/campaign/CT_sweatfree

Chicago, IL — Drivers of Cosmopolitan Textile Rental in Chicago scored a big victory when they unanimously ratified a new contract on May 19th after an 11-day strike. The 17 members of Teamsters Local 731 were supported by a majority of the laundry production workers at the facility, who refused to cross the picket line and work during the strike. According to Gloria Cortina, a UNITE HERE member, who has been with Cosmopolitan for over 20 years, –

Statement of John W. Wilhelm
President/Hospitality, UNITE HERE International Union

UNITE HERE International Union applauds legislation (the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act of 2005) introduced by Senators Kennedy and McCain for comprehensive immigration reform. The time is long overdue for a realistic fix of our broken immigration system. While we are a long way from passage and important details will continue to be debated, this bill is a rational solution for the millions of undocumented workers in the United States who have no rights on the job and are vulnerable to exploitation from abusive employers. And because the legislation includes the right to join a union and the right to change jobs, it is good for all American workers. All workers benefit when the playing field is level. UNITE HERE joins with our business, community, faith-based, and union allies in the struggle to get this balanced legislation approved. We urge President Bush and Congress to pass the bill.

Former President of the Textile Workers Union of America and dedicated pioneer labor leader for more than 70 years, Sol Stetin died in St. Louis on May 20 of complications of leukemia. Born on April 2, 1910 in Pabianice, Poland, near the silk center of Lodz, to Fanny and Hymen Stetin, he arrived at Ellis Island in 1921 at the age of ten and settled with his family in the silk city of Paterson NJ. During the turbulent years of the Great Depression, he worked in a dye shop, and soon joined a union. He became an organizer, leading strikes and organizing campaigns.

Elected Secretary-Treasurer of the Textile Workers Union of America in 1968 and President in 1972, he immediately took on the textile workers’ rights campaign in the South, including the J.P. Stevens Company effort on which the film –