Calif. Hotel Walk-Off Strike Continues New Wave of Worker Militancy

[Omaha Steve]

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6365/calif._hotel_walk-off_strike_continues_new_wave_of_worker_militancy/

Wednesday August 25 12:14 pm

By Micah Uetricht


UNITE-HERE union members and allies protest against the Hyatt Hotels Corporation in the streets of Chicago, Ill., on July 22, 2010. (Photo by Jesse Kadj)


The Embassy Suites hotel in Irvine, Calif., bears a number of similarities to workplaces around the country.

Like other workers around the country, employees there say they're getting squeezed. They're expected to do more with less: fewer supplies, fewer breaks, and less money. Like the vast majority of American workers, they're not unionized. Company-wide profits, however, seem to be doing okay.

But in a move rarely seen since the Great Depression, Embassy Suites workers went on strike early this month over alleged lost wages. Although as nonunion workers they had few legal rights to protect their actions, they were united and angry. On August 9, workers walked off the job and formed a picket line at the hotel's entrance.

It was the latest in a series of bold actions by workers affiliated with UNITE HERE, the hotel workers union, this summer. In May, organizers at the Hyatt Regency Chicago were denied access to hotels to speak with workers; in response, the workers staged a brief wildcat walkout.

Last month, almost a thousand UNITE HERE workers and community supporters were arrested in civil disobedience actions around the country—many in cities where such actions had not occurred for decades—against the Hyatt corporation. And now the Embassy workers in Irvine walked off the job despite a lack of union recognition.

While the action isn't widespread, the Irvine workers have not been the only ones to strike without official collective bargaining representation. In July, non-union immigrant workers in Morganton, N.C., went on a wildcat strike over work conditions.

FULL story at link.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. It IS starting, can you feel it?

The parallels to the... 1920s are here... can you feel it?

[FirstLight]

2. are Unions the only way for workers to 'organize'...?

I think not. The whole attitude of 'take this job & shove it' is coming back in a BIG way.

See, the corporations forrgot something... when we have nothing left to lose, we find dignity. It's not just about the unemployed, but those who still have jobs find they are getting the mere fact they are employed being held over their heads. And the companies give no guarantee they will have a job in 3 mos, 6 mos...yet they keep taking the worker's freedoms and liberties and violating privacy and treating them like chattel...?

Nope. no mas.

good. I am willing to march and be that advocate... i just finished a certification in HR and I refuse to do some of the stuff they deem as appropriate for corporate to do to its personnell...and some of it is still legally 'gray' but they say the worker has less rights so why not.
nope. not gonna fly much longer.
and people won't look to win legal battles in this war
torches & pitchforks baby!

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Historically YES

but it will take me hours to explain this.