On Sept. 11, workers from three different Chicago hotels picketed outside their respective workplaces to ensure that their hard-won gains of the past few years are safeguarded. Picket lines formed outside the Affinia Chicago, W and Drake hotels, all located within Chicago’s downtown area.
Unite Here Local 1, the union that represents 15,000 hospitality workers, including 6,000 downtown Chicago hotel workers, organized the protests after the Aug. 31 expiration of their contract. The union efforts to negotiate a new contract were frustrated by management.
The hotel corporate managers claim that workers need to tighten their belts and take a rollback of wages and benefits because of the economic crisis. But the union points out that, despite the capitalist economic crisis, the hotel business in Chicago continues to bring in profits.
“Across the board, hotels are crying about the economy,” said Unite Here Local 1 spokeswoman Annemarie Strassel. But the reality is, “No one is suffering more from it than our workers.” (Chicago Tribune, Sept. 13)
Management, not only in the hotel industry but across the economy, is turning the crisis into a bludgeon used to threaten workers and squeeze concessions from labor. Each dollar not spent on workers is an extra dollar for the company’s bottom line. The 30 Chicago hotels with union-represented workers are owned by powerhouses such as Hyatt, Sheraton, Hilton and Starwood.
Through contracts won in 2002 and 2006, workers secured greater health care benefits and pay raises that took standard wages for housekeepers from $8.83 to $14.60 an hour. The Chicago hotel workers are now fighting hard against the offensive of their corporate bosses so that they may hold on to these victories.
The protests come just months after the sixth anniversary of the strike at the Congress Plaza hotel. Congress Plaza workers started the strike on June 15, 2003, six months after their contract expired. The hotel had slashed wages and benefits while fighting for subcontracting rights.
Among the 65 remaining strikers at the Congress Plaza Hotel, one former employee, Leticia Cortina, who still pickets with the workers five times a week, says that “Six years is not too long to wait for justice.”
“It’s not time to give up,” she said, “not until we win.”(Chi-Town Daily, June 16)
