Hyatt Hotel Slams Week of Strikes

A different strike for a different hotel

As experienced union negotiators understand, no contract is just about wages and benefits. There are other extremely important protections and rights for workers that are often the most controversial aspects of negotiations.

In this particular case, the union is taking a stand for specific contract language that allows workers to organize solidarity actions such as strikes and boycotts if it thinks Hyatt management is imposing egregiously unsafe or abusive working conditions.

This is the controversial language that Hillan terms, ​“unprecedented in San Francisco.”

“Yes, well this ​‘unprecedented language,’ as Mr. Hillan describes it, is in direct response to Hyatt’s unprecedented abuse,” UNITE-HERE national boycott coordinator Lisa Jaicks told me while holding a picket sign.

But, as Jaicks reported to me, neither is it quite so unprecedented as Mr. Hillan suggested.

In fact, Local 2 negotiated similar language with the prestigious landmark Fairmont Hotel after management there recently threatened to convert prime guest rooms into exclusive private condominiums.

After citywide protests, the hotel backed off. But if the issue comes up again, the union now has contractual rights to organize economic actions such as a strike and boycott. And, just in the last month, the union negotiated similar contract language covering workers at restaurants employed at San Francisco International Airport.

“So, again, contradicting what Mr. Hillan claims in your interview, this language is not without precedent,” Wong said. ​“But it is not about getting what we got at the Fairmont or at SFO. It is about addressing specific conditions at Hyatt hotels where workers need rights to express solidarity with each other.”

Antonia Cortex, a 35-year San Francisco Grand Hyatt housekeeper, agrees. ​“I have chronic pain in my shoulders and elbows, and I clean just 14 rooms a day,” she said. ​“In some cities, Hyatt makes [non-union] housekeepers clean 30 rooms in one day. I’m on strike because I want the right to take action for all Hyatt housekeepers, no matter where they work. We all work for the same company. We should all have the right to stand up for each other.”

While the unique character of the strike has attracted scorn from management, labor supporters both recognize and admire its bold and courageous stand.

For example, the 100,000-member affiliates of the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO, support obtaining contract language that would give Hyatt workers rights ​“to organize, get contracts or protest abuses wherever they may occur.”

Clearly, in a period when unions are fighting mostly defensive battles to hold onto workers’ current wages and healthcare benefits, UNITE-HERE’s week-long, nationally coordinated strike attempts to do much more.

“This is an exciting and historic event for our union,” Local 2 president Mike Casey told me. ​“After two years without a contact, workers in four cities for the first time have coordinated week-long strikes to advance the principle of solidarity.”

We are the best place to work in town

UNITE-HERE and the Hyatt chain have been at odds for some time with currently active boycotts at 17 locations around the country, all initiated by workers at the targeted hotels. The union has documented an impressive $20 million loss in hotel revenue.

Union safety concerns are a major issue and would seem to be backed up by a November 19, 2009 Chicago Tribune report by Julie Wernau: ​“Housekeepers at Hyatt Hotels are more likely to get injured on the job than at other major hotel chain, according to a study set to be published in January’s American Journal of Industrial Medicine. The study, led by researchers at the University of Illinois School of Public Health, is based on data from 50 unionized hotel properties of various brands.”

Again, Hillan doesn’t put much stock into this. ​“On claims of Hyatt abuse, the documentation of the supposed academic study is not credible,” he says.

Union supporters point out that the critical report was published in a prestigious peer-reviewed journal.

Nonetheless, Hillan asserts that ​“Hyatt is the best place to work in town.”

But not according to Rush: ​“They fired 100 housekeepers in Boston, made them train minimum-wage replacements and then, on very short notice, gave them plastic garbage bags to clean out their lockers. Some of these workers had over 20 years. Is this the best place to work?

“This is not the only example. I would not be working here in San Francisco because of their harassment if not for the union protecting me. Neither would others at my hotel.”

Pointing to a woman on the picket line with her infant child, Aurolyn described the case of seven-year Hyatt employee Victoria Guillen, who had a doctor’s excuse from work for her recent high-risk pregnancy.

“San Francisco Hyatt management told Victoria she would be fired if she did not return to work three days after the birth of her daughter even though her doctor advised several more months of recuperation.

“We were outraged. Co-workers petitioned for her, the union had religious and community delegations plead her case and Victoria eventually was able to return to work only after the doctor approved her medical release. But, of course, the horrible stress of these threats during her pregnancy was outrageous and unnecessary.

“We want the right to express that same kind of solidarity for other Hyatt workers wherever the abuse occurs without being harassed or intimidated. It’s that simple!”

That basic idea of concern for each other originally motivated workers to build unions in the first place. It appears now, again, to be the inspiration for hotel workers on Hyatt picket lines across the country.

Carl Finamore is Machinist Local Lodge 1781 delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council, AFL-CIO.

This piece was first published at BeyondChron, San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily.