Hotel workers,
along with clergy, labor, and community supporters, held a loud and
spirited protest Feb. 23 outside the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara,
announcing the launch of a boycott of the hotel.
The Grand Hyatt is
owned and operated by Hyatt Hotels Corporation. In 2009, the parent
company raised more than $1 billion for its principal owners, the
Pritzker family, in an initial public stock offering.
“Hyatt doesn’t
respect our rights,” said Leoncia Rodriguez, a housekeeper who
has worked at the Hyatt Regency for seven years. “They won’t
commit to letting us organize freely, without intimidation. In the
meantime, we are overworked and we get hurt. This is why we are
calling a boycott and letting customers know: Don’t eat, meet, or
sleep at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara!”
Another hotel
worker, who said she made only about $700 every two weeks, told the
rally that she could barely afford the cheapest of the group health
care options available and still couldn’t go to the doctor because
she couldn’t afford the co-pay.
Union recognition
for these workers is especially important in light of the rising cost
of living. “State on the road to $4 gas,” the main headline of
the San Jose Mercury News warned Feb. 24. The article opens:
“Remember predictions just last week that gas prices in California
could top $4 a gallon before Memorial Day? Bank on it, and possibly
within a few weeks.”
The article goes on
to report that spot market prices for unleaded gas in the San
Francisco Bay Area had jumped 23 cents the previous two days.
Food prices around
the world have also soared in recent weeks, a significant factor
fueling the current uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East and
bound to affect workers here as well.
Hotel has
refused a fair process
The boycott launch
came after Hyatt Regency workers had organized for over two years to
secure a fair process in their attempt to form a union. Workers have
called for customers to honor the boycott by refusing to book rooms,
hold events or spend any money at the Hyatt Regency Santa Clara until
a fair process is secured.
It was announced at
the rally that the hotel could lose an estimated $2 million in
revenue from unions, community organizations and church groups that
have already pledged to observe the boycott.
According to UNITE
HERE Local 19: “Hyatt Regency Santa Clara workers began organizing
in 2008 because they face excessive workloads, low wages, lack of
respect, and a lack of quality, affordable health care. Housekeepers
are expected to clean at least 16 rooms in a single eight-hour shift,
making up to 32 beds with 96 pillows and 128 sheets. Many
housekeepers surveyed at the Hyatt Santa Clara reported daily
workplace pain or injury. The average weekly wage of non-unionized
hotel and motel workers in Santa Clara County is a mere $538.”
Hyatt has
distinguished itself for its pursuit of profit at any price, the
union says. “In Boston, for example, Hyatt fired all housekeepers
at its three non-union hotels, replacing them with outsourced workers
paid about half of what the fired workers had earned. The company’s
CEO, meanwhile, was paid $6.7 million in compensation in 2008, and
its chairman received a bonus of $1.4 million.”
The turnout for
this picket and rally was noticeably larger than for previous actions
at the hotel and the chanting more raucous. One veteran activist
suggested that we could thank the militant workers’ struggle in
Wisconsin and other Midwest states in response to attacks by
right-wing governors on union rights.
Members of ANSWER
(Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) and the Party for Socialism and
Liberation joined the picket and handed out flyers for the upcoming
March 19 demonstration in San Francisco headlined “Stop the Wars,
Stop the War on Working People Here” and “Fund Jobs, Healthcare &
Education, Not War.”
