Unite HERE, hotel workers, in confrontation with Hyatt, Pritzker family
UNITE HERE (the union representing hotel and restaurant workers) hotel workers around the country are targeting Hyatt Hotels, which have been attempting to impose a whole range of "push-backs" against their workers. A push back is when unionized workers are faced with new conditions, imposed unilaterally by management. The strategy appears to come from the very top of those who manage and own the Hyatt hotel chain, led by Chicago's Pritzker family.
Hyatt chief billionaire Penny Pritzker (above center) served as chief fundraiser for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and began cashing in when she got him to stop supporting card check for union organizers. Pritzker is now orchestrating increased work loads for Hyatt workers, prompting protests from Unite HERE, the union representing the workers. Pritzker has also contributed $50,000 to the union busting PAC fund of Illinois Stand for Children, the group that tried to rush "Performance Counts" through the Illinois General Assembly in December 2010 and early January 2011.In Chicago, a number of union actions against Hyatt's management have taken place already. As reported on a Labor Beat YouTube segment, Chicago's Hyatt Regency housekeepers have been given excessive work loads in cleaning extra rooms to the extent that they are experiencing numerous work injuries.
On November 18, 2010, a protest was organized by UNITE HERE Local 1 and community supporters to highlight this problem. Chicago Area Committee on Occupational Safety and Health Director Emanuel Blackwell told the rally in front of the Hyatt Regency "work should not hurt." Protesters then marched 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. This action can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfqf5KoVXRg.
As Chicago Teachers Union members are learning, those who own Hyatt are anti-union — both the unions that represent the people who work in their hotels and public employee unions like the Chicago Teachers Union and the union locals in the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Education Association.
Hyatt workers protested at Penny Pritzker's Regency Hyatt Chicago in November 2010 against the speed up of work at the hotel. Substance photo by Mike Elliott, Labor Beat.Penny Pritzker, the billionaire Chicagoan who chaired fundraising for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, is one of the most powerful people among Hyatt's owners. Penny Pritzker was one of those who persuaded Barack Obama to double cross the unions who had helped elect him and back away from his promise to help union organizing by supporting "card check" for union worker organizing. After criticism of card check from Pritzker and others, Obama stopped his advocacy for card check, which had been a promise to the AFL-CIO during his election campaign.
