On Feb. 10, hundreds of workers, students, veterans and others gathered outside the Century Plaza Hyatt hotel demanding a fair contract for workers. UNITE HERE, the hospitality workers’ union, organized the protest. Members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and organizers with the ANSWER Coalition joined in solidarity with the hotel workers.
The hotel itself pulls in massive profits with room rates for a single adult as high as $560 a night. With profits being shoveled into the pockets of the hotel owners, the workers who make the hotel run see their benefits slashed and their demands for a contract ignored.
A Glendale Hilton hotel worker named Isabel came out to show solidarity with the Hyatt workers. She told Liberation, “Hyatt hotel does not want to renew their contract, the hotel is taking away workers’ benefits while expanding the duties of the workers.”
The hotel bosses can get away with this because there are no contracts and they know that working people need jobs now more than ever as the ranks of the unemployed swell in the ongoing economic crisis, allowing the bosses to exploit the workers to their very last drop.
A young man named Frank who is currently unemployed stated to Liberation: “This is for workers’ rights everywhere, when one worker hurts we all hurt.”
Workers of the hotel also unveiled a massive banner reading “Stop hurting housekeepers,” draping it out of the mid section of the hotel. The banner drop was met with cheers and militant chanting from the picket line below before bosses sent cops to have the banner removed.
Progressives and revolutionaries should continue to stand with hotel workers and to make their demands heard. The unfair treatment of the workers by the vicious hotel industry needs to stop. The demonstrations in California, and throughout the country, sent a message to the Hyatt CEOs that the workers will stand and fight; it was a major step in the struggle to win a contract. Support the hotel workers! Fair contracts now!
