A day of action against Hyatt

[IndianaGreen]

A day of action against Hyatt

By Jonathan Corin and Rick Greenblatt | July 29, 2010

"FIVE STAR hotel, one star pay!" That's what Joe, a doorman at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Chicago, had to say about his employer when he risked arrest by blocking traffic on a busy downtown street alongside more than 200 Hyatt workers and their allies.

The civil disobedience was part of a coordinated series of actions organized nationwide on July 22 by UNITE HERE as contracts for 45,000 hotel workers in 10 cities nationwide near a common expiration date. The demonstrations took place in more than a dozen cities, from San Diego to Boston, and points in between. The protests targeted the Hyatt hotel chain, which has advanced unreasonable demands in ongoing negotiations, the union says.

Annemarie Strassel, UNITE HERE Local 1's spokesperson, explained that the hotel is taking advantage of the recession to force through a 5-year contract, with cuts in benefits and little room for raises. This this is happening against the background of a rebound in the hotel industry--Hyatt is pulling in billions in profits.

The Hyatt Regency doorman Joe described his plight: "I can't live on $7.96 per hour. They say that I make tips, but these are tough times, and people don't tip the way they used to. And Patrick Donelley got a $600,000 bonus last year."

According to UNITE HERE, attempts by Hyatt locally and nationally to force through unfair contracts fit a pattern in the hotel industry, which rebounds from periods of economic downturn by using recessions as an excuse to force down wages, reduce benefits and cut jobs.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/07/29/day-of-action-against-hyatt

Related news story:

Worker protest at Hyatt results in 41 arrests

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=151x7670

[Kolesar]

1. One of the big hotel chains is owned by the Saudis

Or so I recall from Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"

[Overseas]

2. K&R! //nt

[era veteran]

3. I got out of the hotel business, it wasn't about hospitality

anymore. It is a real estate owned game now. Employees do not matter to the hotel corps., they will just sell the property to another and decimate the workers.