Plight of Hotel Workers Publicized With Street Theater

When: Wednesday, March 7, 10:30 am

Where: Police Memorial Park in Covington (Corner of 3rd and Court Street)

Covington, KY – Workers at the Glendale Hilton in California, owned by Eagle Hospitality, are touring the country to draw attention to the difficult working conditions they face. Hotel workers plan to hold events this week outside of Eagle-owned hotels in California, Arizona, Ohio, and at the company’s headquarters in Covington, KY. They seek a fair resolution to a labor dispute that has embroiled their hotel for over 16 months. They will also announce findings that the unresolved dispute has resulted in over $1 million in lost revenue to Eagle Hospitality-owned hotels nationwide.

Eagle Hospitality owns the Glendale Hilton hotel in California, where workers cite poverty wages, a lack of affordable health insurance and dangerous working conditions as some of the problems they endure. Beginning in September 2005, the workers have organized and sought out a fair process to decide whether to form a union in order to address their concerns.

But the workers’ drive to organize has been met with fierce resistance from their employer, leading them to call for a boycott of their own hotel in April 2006. The boycott was recently expanded to include the Cincinnati Marriott Rivercenter, Embassy Suites Cincinnati-Rivercenter, and Hilton Cincinnati Airport in Kentucky; the Embassy Suites/Dublin, and the Embassy Suites Cleveland/Rockside in Ohio; the Marriott S. West at Burr Ridge in Illinois; and the Embassy Suites Phoenix/Scottsdale in Arizona.

Angela Reid, a bartender at the Glendale Hilton, came to deliver this message: “We hope that the CEO and the Chairman of Eagle Hospitality will speak with us and take a practical approach to settling this dispute. Hotel customers across the country have shown they will stand with us by canceling over a million dollars worth of events. I look forward to the day when we can tell them that we are being treated with respect and invite them to come back.