On June 2, hotel workers held speak-outs on sexual harassment and assault by customers in eight cities. The events were organized by UNITE HERE, the hotel union.
“These customers think they can use us for anything they want, because we don’t have the power that they have or the money that they have,” said Yazmin Vazquez, a Chicago room attendant.
Hotel workers face injuries from the physical stress of their work, including the awkward lifting of heavy mattresses hundreds of times a day. But the hidden hazard of hotel work, housekeepers say, is customers’ assaults on their dignity and physical integrity.
Workers report that male customers expose themselves, attempt to buy sexual services, grab and grope them and, in some cases, attempt to rape them…
The management response has been “deafening silence,” (said Annemarie Strassel of UNITE HERE), adding that she’s aware of only one hotel in which a staff meeting was called around the issue.
I was thinking of writing a post about how dehumanizing it is to work for Hospitality Staffing Solutions, the “temporary agency” used by Hyatt Hotels in Boston, Indianapolis and other cities, where workers start at minimum wage with no benefits and have to clean up to 30 rooms a day.
I was thinking of driving home the point that these kind of labor subcontractors are increasingly enabling the hospitality industry to treat its workers as cheap and disposable commodities…
…but I think this recent ad for Hospitality Staffing Solutions will tell you everything you need to know…
Not long ago, Hyatt Chicago produced a slick film entitled “An Important Message to Our Valued Employees” (above) that cynically smears the the Chicago Hyatt workers’ union (Unite Here Local 1). Among it’s many uses, apparently the film has played on an continuous loop in the staff cafeteria, where employees are compelled to watch a professional actor slam their union, claiming that Unite Here has a “a national agenda” that “nothing to do” with them.
Now Unite Here has produced a response (below). In addition to being a hilarious satire of the Hyatt video, it contains important history and context to the Hyatt workers struggle. I encourage you to watch the Hyatt clip first and then click on the one below. Despite the tongue-in-cheek nature of their message, the workers’ video provides an important reminder of the daunting challenges working women and men are facing in the current national climate.
Check out the Hotel Workers Rising website for the latest news on the Hyatt boycott nationwide.
Please check out these two wonderful pieces about the current labor struggles in Wisconsin by Leon Fink, a history professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, JRC member, and a member of our recent trip to Israel/Palestine. (You may recall he posted about his experiences on our tour for this very blog.)
In a piece he wrote for the News & Observer last month, Leon offers a profoundly important history lesson about The Wisconsin Idea – “a forward-looking set of policies developed under four Republican governors (most notably Robert M. La Follette and Francis McGovern) that proved a blueprint for a nationwide Progressive Era.”
(The Wisconsin Idea) helped lift Wisconsinites from the doldrums of the great depression of the 1890s into a prosperous “mixed” economy combining the resources of farm and factory with science, engineering and human welfare expertise rooted in a state university system centered in Madison.
The policy initiatives were legion. After years of retrenchment, Wisconsinites turned to “tax fairness” as a way of redistributing the burden for vital government services, inaugurating an inheritance tax on the rich and raising rates for railroads, insurance companies and utilities. The wage-earners of the state – recognized as suffering under “unequal conditions of contract” – were rewarded with pioneering statutes in worker’s compensation, health and safety regulations and extension schools for adult education…
It was a formula that soon made Wisconsin the envy of the nation on questions ranging from taxation to industrial relations to land use policy. All told, the Wisconsin Idea suggested that through a close working relationship among major stakeholders, as pioneer labor economist John R. Commons put it, “order, intelligence, care, and thought could be exercised by the state.”
(What else is there to say except the times they have a’changed?)
The second piece is an op-ed from today’s Chicago Trib. The title really says it all: “Et Tu Barack? The President Takes a Powder on Workers’ Plight.”
Leon begins by noting Obama’s visible absence amidst legions of Democrats (and even some Republicans) who showed up at a mass protest against WI Gov. Scott Walker’s union-busting bill in Madison last Saturday.
For those who had such high hopes that Obama would truly fight for the working men and women of this country (see clip above) the answers are not pretty. As Leon sadly concludes:
People in the streets in Madison recognize the need for shared sacrifice. All they see is the rich and powerful taking their pound of flesh from the poor and weak. For Democrats and workers, Gov. Walker has become the poster child for the raid on their democratic rights and standard of living. However, one wonders how long it will be until the attention is turned to that man behind the curtain.
Many are saying that the battle in Wisconsin is, at long last, shedding some much needed light on the critical role unions play in our economy and in the lives of real working people. If that’s actually so, I’d say it’s high time.
Of course unions have pathologies. Every big human institution does. And anyone who thinks they’re on the wrong side of an issue should fight it out with them. But unions are also the only large-scale movement left in America that persistently acts as a countervailing power against corporate power. They’re the only large-scale movement left that persistently acts in the economic interests of the middle class.
The American middle class isn’t looking for a bailout or a handout. Most people just want a chance to share in the success of the companies they help to prosper. Making it easier for all Americans to form unions would give the middle class the bargaining power it needs for better wages and benefits. And a strong and prosperous middle class is necessary if our economy is to succeed.
Warren Jacobson is the president of the Madison chapter of the Zionist Organization of America. He is middle class. Conservative. Mid-Western. And for 18 years, a union member and government worker.
In 2010, he voted for Scott Walker. But when asked by a JTA reporter if he supported the Governor’s effort to effectively neuter the state government employees’ union, he said no. He had experienced anti-Semitism and discrimination. Unions might not be perfect, he acknowledged, but:
“I want someone supporting me.”
His statement is a powerful distillation of why unions remain vital. Without a union, each worker is on his or her own. They must fend for themselves. And more often than not, they will lose…
We are fooling ourselves if we think unions are no longer important to maintaining and growing the large Jewish middle class. They are. Jacobson is more typical than we realize.
Almost exactly a century ago, on March 25, 1911, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory went up in flames, killing 146 people, mostly immigrant women workers. The management had locked exit doors and stairwells to prevent workers from leaving early. As a result, workers trying to escape the fire were forced to jump from as high as the tenth floor, or simply to wait and smolder to death.
At a gathering in the Metropolitan Opera House a few days after the fire, labor organizer Rose Schneiderman rallied the crowd with the following words:
“Every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us… I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves.”
Schneiderman understood that more was at stake in the days following the catastrophe than fire safety regulations. Instead, she argued that only a strong union movement would guarantee workers a safe and dignified workplace in the long run…
Governor Walker and his billionaire supporters are on the verge of destroying the labor movement in America. If that happens, workers will lose most negotiating power, wages will fall, and many more of us will lose our health insurance and other benefits. If Rose Schneiderman were here today, she would tell us, “It’s up to us to save ourselves.”
The following blessing was just sent to me by my friend and colleague Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman, of Reconstructionist congregation Sha’arei Shamayim in Madison, WI. It was said during the Shabbat morning Torah service for all those who participated in the many protests, vigils, or hearings at the Wisconsin State Capitol last week. Laurie reports that 90% of the congregation and guests came up for the blessing.
Mi sheberach Avoteynu Avraham, Yitzhak, v’Ya’akov May the One who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
V’Imoteynu Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, v’Leah And our foremothers Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah,
Bless all of you who have come up to the Torah this morning.
No matter what happens in the next week may you be reminded that even tiny actions can affect others, create ripple effects, and make a difference in our world.
May you take responsibility for what you say, for how you behave, for what you do and for what you do not do.
May you pursue justice, act with integrity, and work hard to create a society where all are cared for, where every person has the resources that he or she needs.
May you remember to take care of yourselves and your families so that your work is sustainable.
And may you heed the words of Pirke Avot: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”
Last Thursday, I joined over seventy clergy, hotel workers and solidarity activists to participate in an interfaith service in front of the Hyatt Regency in downtown Chicago (click on the clip above). We sang, we chanted, we exhorted – and Rabbi Peter Knobel of Beth Emet in Evanston declared Hyatt “lo kasher” (“not kosher”) for its unjust labor practices.
Given Hyatt’s dismal labor record you may be more than a little appalled to learn that the American Jewish Committee in Chicago will be honoring Mark Hoplamazian, CEO of Hyatt Corporation, with its “Civic Leadership Award” during a dinner which will take place tonight at – you guessed it – the Hyatt Regency.
In a recent article in the Boston Jewish Advocate, Chicago AJC Director Daniel Elbaum, commented that Hoplamazian “had a better understanding of Jewish values than anyone I knew.”
Huh?
If you disagree with the way Daniel Elbaum understands Jewish values, please click here to send him a letter that tells him so. We need to let Hyatt management know that this award will not provide a moral fig leaf for their immoral behavior.
Click below to read the entire Boston Advocate article:
Today, UNITE HERE Local 1 members are gathering in front of Hyatt Global Headquarters in Chicago to call for a boycott at several area Hyatt Hotels—the Hyatt Regency Chicago, the Hyatt O’Hare, and the Park Hyatt. Hyatt workers will be joined by Jewish allies, who are releasing a pledge signed by over 250 Rabbis and other Jewish leaders nationwide in support of Hyatt workers across North America. The boycott and national pledge represent the latest escalation of a labor dispute with Hyatt, which has become the target of labor demonstrations across North America in recent weeks.
The boycott announcement comes almost one year after union contracts with Hyatt in Chicago have expired (Aug. 31, 2009). Hyatt workers have taken several actions in recent months, including a work stoppage on May 26, 2010, a picket of Hyatt’s annual shareholders meeting on June 9, 2010, a massive demonstration outside the Hyatt Regency Chicago on July 22, 2010, and a strike vote on July 29, 2010. Hyatt protests in Chicago have been echoed by other major demonstrations this summer in 15 cities across the U.S. and Canada.
The three Hyatt boycotts in Chicago, which join seven other active boycotts of Hyatt properties nationwide, signal a growing crisis for Chicago-based Hyatt and its billionaire owners—the Pritzker Family—who have become a symbol among hotel workers for how the wealthy are trying to take unfair advantage of the recession. Hotel workers in Chicago have endured staff cuts, reduced hours, and excessive injury rates. Frustration among area workers has deepened, as Hyatt has tried to make further job cuts and lock workers into recession contracts even as the economy rebounds.
In the clip above: behind me stands Rabbi Alison Abrams of Temple Chai in Long Grove and Cantor Michael Davis of Lakeside Congregation, Highland Park, both of whom spoke at the press conference as well.
Interfaith Worker Justice has just launched its annual “Labor in the Pulpits/on the Bimah/in the Minbar” initiative, encouraging houses of worship around the country to dedicate Labor Day weekend (September 3-5) to worker justice awareness.
You can access the resources and materials by clicking here. I encourage you to share them with your Priest, Rabbi, Pastor or Imam, as the case may be. (I contributed a piece to the Jewish resources – click here to download the pdf.)
Here are some more pix of the Hyatt civil disobedience actions that took place across the country last Thursday. The first two come from the Chicago demonstration, next down are demonstrators on the red carpet in (where else?) Hollywood, CA.
Click here to see my good friend and brave colleague Rabbi Toba Spitzer getting arrested at the demonstration in Boston.
Shalom Rav 