Nearing holidays and facing cuts, hotel workers say Hilton is taking unfair advantage of the recession
(Chicago, IL) – Just days before the holidays, hotel workers at the Palmer House Hilton are walking off the job, launching a day long strike to protest Hilton’s efforts to lock workers into the recession. Holding signs that read “Taxpayers on Strike,” workers say that Hilton is taking unfair advantage of the recession by squeezing workers even though they wheedled a $180 million bailout from the federal government. Other actions are planned today at the world’s largest Hiltons in Honolulu and San Francisco.
Hilton Worldwide, which manages the Palmer House, is owned by one of Wall Street’s largest private equity firms–Blackstone. Hilton got $180 million of bailout funds not meant for wealthy hotel owners when the Federal Reserve wrote off some debt Hilton owed U.S. taxpayers. Meanwhile, Hilton wants to lock workers into cheap recession contracts even as hotels rebound.
Hilton is on the forefront in the hotel industry in Chicago this contract cycle of pushing a program that would dramatically increase the room quota for housekeepers, lowering the standard of cleanliness for guests, speeding up work, and eliminating jobs. Given the physical nature of the work, such a speed up could result in more injuries for housekeepers who already face difficult and sometimes dangerous working conditions.
CBS2 News Report
“Hilton got $180 million of our tax dollars to protect our jobs, but they keep squeezing us,” says Laticia Wilson, a room attendant at the Palmer House Hilton. “I put my hip out just last week while cleaning the rooms, and now they want to add more rooms to what we already have to clean in a day. If Hilton gets their way, more ladies are going to be hurt or laid off.”
The striking workers are members of UNITE HERE Local 1, and include housekeepers, dishwashers, cooks, bell staff, food servers, and others. Hilton workers are among 8,000 other hotel workers in the Chicago area whose contracts expired on August 31, 2009. In August 2010, Hilton workers in Chicago voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike at 4 area properties – the Palmer House Hilton, Hilton O’Hare, the Chicago Hilton, and the Drake, with 96% of union members voting in favor of a strike. The Chicago Hilton and Hilton O’Hare are owned by Hilton and all four are Hilton-managed. UNITE HERE Local 1 represents over 500 workers at the Palmer House, a 1639-room hotel in downtown Chicago.
“An issue of deep concern to Chicago, which has faced a loss of convention business in the last year, is Hilton’s introduction of a dramatic increase to the housekeeping workload—what we call the “Dirty Rooms” program,” says UNITE HERE Local 1 President Henry Tamarin. “Despite having benefited from millions in taxpayer dollars, Hilton’s proposals threaten to lower the standard for cleanliness and guest service at one of the city’s premiere convention hotel properties.”
Blackstone Group [NYSE: BX] manages $100 billion in assets for large pension funds and other investors around the country. Nationwide, the hotel industry is already rebounding faster and stronger than expected. PKF Hospitality projects that hotel revenues will rise an average of 8% annually from 2010 through 2014. Despite trends showing a strong recovery for the hotel industry, hotels are refusing to share that recovery with workers.
Chicago Federation of Labor Offers College Scholarships
The Chicago Federation of Labor will once again offer the William A. Lee Memorial Scholarship Awardsto ten graduating high school students who are members of union families.
The CFL will offer five (5) academic-based scholarships and five (5) random-drawing scholarships in the amount of $2,000 to students graduating from a Chicago or suburban high school. Students may apply in only one of the two categories. The period for submitting applications is January 1 through March 1, 2011.
To be eligible, either the student or one of his or her parents must be a member of a local union affiliated with the Chicago Federation of Labor. All applications must be signed by one of the top two officers of the local union to which the student or his or her parents belongs.
All additional requirements are listed on the application form, including criteria for judging the academic competition. Completed applications must be returned to the CHicago Federation of Labor, William A. Lee Memorial Scholarship Committee, 130 E. Randolph St., Suite 2600, Chicago, IL 60601. All applications must be postmarked by no later than March 1, 2011.
Please see the application for more complete rules. Good luck Class of 2011!
SCHOLARSHIP APPLICATIONS
TV Special on Local 1 Members to Air in January!
One Day Strike at Palmer House Hilton
UNITE HERE Local 1 hotel workers hold a one-day strike at Chicago’s landmark Palmer House Hilton. They talk about big workload increases and layoffs the Hilton company is trying to force the workers to accept, this while working without a contract for 15 months.
Mop March for Chicago Hyatt Hotel Housekeepers
To dramatize excessive workloads, housekeepers and labor community supporters march with mops and buckets up to the entrance of the Hyatt to explain that they were there to help the housekeepers do their work. They were not allowed in, but they made their point.
The 2002 Averted Strike of Chicago Hotel Workers
Excerpts from our Labor Beat documentary “The 7,000”. The huge march down Michigan Avenue, the countdown to the strike deadline, the last minute negotiations to avert the strike, the vote to ratify the contract. A testament to the power of the union and the rank-and-file.
The segments will air on Chicago CAN TV, Cable Channel 19 on the following dates:
They will also air on Evanston Community Media Center, Public Access Cable Channel 6 on the following dates:
In addition, this DVD can be ordered from Labor Beat (Committee for Labor Access) by clicking here. Please put title of DVD, “One Day Strike at Palmer House Hilton” in Description box. Put $15 in Unit Price box. $20 for Canada, and $25 for other countries outside the U.S. NTSC format only.
Local 1 in 2011: Making Historic Change in Chicago
The question is, will it be our Chicago—with political leaders who are accountable to us, or will we have city leadership that caters to big business and leaves working people behind? That’s why Local 1 is signing up hundreds of members to knock on doors to take back our city and do whatever it takes to make sure that we elect Aldermen who will stand up for us.
OUR SCHOOLS. OUR NEIGHBORHOODS. OUR JOBS. OUR CHICAGO. For more information on how you can be part of historic change in Chicago, call your organizer or the Local 1 offices at (312) 663-4373.
Palmer House Hilton workers to strike, protesting $180M Hilton bailout
Nearing holidays and facing cuts, hotel workers say Hilton is taking unfair advantage of the recession
Hilton Worldwide, which manages the Palmer House, is owned by one of Wall Street’s largest private equity firms–Blackstone. Hilton got $180 million of bailout funds not meant for wealthy hotel owners when the Federal Reserve wrote off some debt Hilton owed U.S. taxpayers. Meanwhile, Hilton wants to lock workers into cheap recession contracts even as hotels rebound.
Hilton is on the forefront in the hotel industry in Chicago this contract cycle of pushing a program that would dramatically increase the room quota for housekeepers, lowering the standard of cleanliness for guests, speeding up work, and eliminating jobs. Given the physical nature of the work, such a speed up could result in more injuries for housekeepers who already face difficult and sometimes dangerous working conditions.
CBS2 News Report
“Hilton got $180 million of our tax dollars to protect our jobs, but they keep squeezing us,” says Laticia Wilson, a room attendant at the Palmer House Hilton. “I put my hip out just last week while cleaning the rooms, and now they want to add more rooms to what we already have to clean in a day. If Hilton gets their way, more ladies are going to be hurt or laid off.”
The striking workers are members of UNITE HERE Local 1, and include housekeepers, dishwashers, cooks, bell staff, food servers, and others. Hilton workers are among 8,000 other hotel workers in the Chicago area whose contracts expired on August 31, 2009. In August 2010, Hilton workers in Chicago voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike at 4 area properties – the Palmer House Hilton, Hilton O’Hare, the Chicago Hilton, and the Drake, with 96% of union members voting in favor of a strike. The Chicago Hilton and Hilton O’Hare are owned by Hilton and all four are Hilton-managed. UNITE HERE Local 1 represents over 500 workers at the Palmer House, a 1639-room hotel in downtown Chicago.
“An issue of deep concern to Chicago, which has faced a loss of convention business in the last year, is Hilton’s introduction of a dramatic increase to the housekeeping workload—what we call the “Dirty Rooms” program,” says UNITE HERE Local 1 President Henry Tamarin. “Despite having benefited from millions in taxpayer dollars, Hilton’s proposals threaten to lower the standard for cleanliness and guest service at one of the city’s premiere convention hotel properties.”
Blackstone Group [NYSE: BX] manages $100 billion in assets for large pension funds and other investors around the country. Nationwide, the hotel industry is already rebounding faster and stronger than expected. PKF Hospitality projects that hotel revenues will rise an average of 8% annually from 2010 through 2014. Despite trends showing a strong recovery for the hotel industry, hotels are refusing to share that recovery with workers.
Vote for Hyatt: National Scrooge of the Year
Each year, national Jobs with Justice gives an “award” to the greediest, most cold-hearted company or person of the year. Nominations for the 2010 Scrooge of the Yearare in, and Hyatt Hotels has been nominated for their fight against workers:
Please take a moment to visit the Jobs With Justice website and cast your vote for Hyatt!
Women supporting Hyatt housekeepers send delegation to hotel to help workers clean rooms
Responding to injury reports, community says, “If Hyatt won’t ease their housekeepers’ burden, we will”
The delegation, led by professors, housekeepers and Lynda DeLaForgue, the Co-Chair of Citizen Action, comes just one week after housekeepers at the Hyatt Regency and several other Hyatt properties in Chicago filed complaints with OSHA about work-related injuries that can lead, in some instances, to permanent disability. The delegation was met at the door by Hyatt management and security, who rejected the offer by the community to help the workers. Teems of housekeepers and other hotel workers peered through the windows waving to supporters outside carrying mops and fitted sheets, who chanted “we want to help” until they were ushered away by police.
“Housekeeping is hard work, and many ladies are having accidents, slipping on wet floors or hurting their hands and wrists lifting heavy mattresses,” says Ofelia Martinez, who works in housekeeping at the Park Hyatt. “My message to Hyatt today is stop pushing us to work so hard, especially non-union Hyatt housekeepers who are cleaning 25-30 rooms a day. We are not animals, we are humans.”
A major peer-reviewed study of hotel worker injuries at 50 U.S. hotels operated by the five largest U.S. hotel companies was published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine (AJIM) earlier this year. By company, housekeepers working at Hyatt hotels in the AJIM study had the highest injury rate of those hotels studied.
Injuries in the hotel industry disproportionately affect women. Nearly all housekeepers are women, and a research study involving the five largest hotel companies in the U.S. shows housekeepers to have the highest injury rates.
The women leading the delegation into the hotel are bringing with them supplies for the housekeepers that reduce some of the strain associated with housekeeping work. Supplies include common sense solutions to the problems associated with housekeeping work, such as fitted sheets to reduce the number of times that women must lift mattresses weighing nearly 100 lbs. to tuck sheets, and long-handled mops, so workers do not have to get down on their hands and knees to clean the floors.
“We come today with mops, rubber gloves, and our compassion,” says Virginia Parks, an Associate Professor at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. “We’re here to say to the Hyatt housekeepers, you are not alone in your struggle.”
In May 2010, over one hundred housekeepers at the Hyatt Regency Chicago stopped work for several hours, protesting worsening working conditions in housekeeping.
Hyatt housekeepers in Chicago and 7 other cities to file injury complaints with OSHA
The hazards associated with hotel work and service sector jobs more broadly have been largely invisible and unregulated. Serious injuries can happen slowly over time, through the repetition of certain tasks. Nevertheless, the long-term impact can result in debilitating injuries that in some instances require surgical intervention, physical therapy, or lead to permanent disability, like the loss of the full use of one’s arm.
The AJIM study found the highest injury rates among hotel workers to be in housekeeping. The study also indicated alarming differences in hotel injuries by race and gender, showing that women hotel workers were 50% more likely to be injured than men, and Hispanic women had almost double the risk of injury of their white female counterparts. The variation in injury rates across the major companies suggests room for remedies. Housekeepers working at Hyatt hotels in the AJIM study had the highest injury rate of those hotels studied, with a risk of injury almost twice that of the company with the lowest rate.
At some Hyatt properties, room attendants are required to clean as many as 30 rooms a day, nearly double what is commonly considered standard in the industry. Speeding up work by raising the room quota or adding room amenities can strain the body and lead to more accidents, like slipping on wet bathroom floors or tripping over furniture.
“Cleaning 25 to 30 rooms a day and making beds ‘hospital style’ demands working fast and lifting heavy mattresses,” says Maria Carmen Dominguez, who worked at the Grand Hyatt San Antonio as a room attendant before getting a broken tendon and permanently injuring her shoulder. “After surgery and months of physical therapy, I am still in pain anytime I lift my arm, even just to get dressed or brush my daughter’s hair.”
Dominguez also alleges that workers are discouraged from reporting injuries for fear of punishment, and that management has created a monetary disincentive for reporting injuries called “Safety Bingo,” with a lottery prize for housekeepers that grows every day that no injury is reported.
The complaints recommend to OSHA a number of remedies to reduce the health risks associated with housekeeping work. These recommendations include: fitted sheets to reduce the number of times that women must lift 100-plus pound mattresses to tuck sheets; long-handled mops and dusters, so workers do not have to get down on their hands and knees to clean the floors or climb bathtubs to reach high surfaces; and reasonable room quotas, so women no longer have to rush to finish rooms, risking slips and falls.
“There are common sense changes like fitted sheets, mops, or caps on daily room quotas that can make the difference between healthy bodies and hurt housekeepers,” says occupational health expert Gary Orr. “It is critical that we explore ways of making hotel work safe to reduce the high rates of injury that we see among housekeepers. Corporate-wide solutions are not only needed but are the most effective and less costly as they can be applied to multiple worksites.”
Complaints were filed by workers in Hyatt Hotels in the following cities: San Antonio, Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Honolulu, and Indianapolis.