As we celebrate Labor Day today, let’s take a moment to hone in on one industry where unions have greatly assisted the employees and where one corporation in particular is doing everything they can to trample on them. The industry is the American Hotel Industry…and this particular corporation is Hyatt.
“You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger…else he will cry to God against you and you will incur guilt.” Deut 24.
As Rachel Maddow routinely points out, most Republican politicians have no sense of embarrassment when they are hypocritical. It’s not a stretch to think that corporations feel no guilt when they treat their laborers poorly. As the documentary “The Corporation” points out, if corporations were human, they’d be diagnosed as psychopathic.
A study of hotel worker injuries from 50 U.S. hotels was published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine in February 2010. By company, housekeepers working at Hyatt hotels in the AJIM study had the highest injury rate of those hotels studied, with a risk of injury twice that of the company with the lowest rates. Housekeepers surveyed at union and non-union Hyatt hotels report pain and injuries from their work as housekeepers. Women at one unionized Hyatt clean 16 rooms a day, which gives room attendants less than one half hour to clean an entire room, re-cart supplies and move to the next room. At some Hyatt hotels, where housekeepers have no union, conditions are even worse. Room attendants at non-union hotels clean as many as 30 rooms a day, nearly double the quota of union properties.
Many hotels have recently introduced new room amenities without reducing the number of rooms assigned to housekeepers each day. Luxury beds with heavier mattresses and linens, triple-sheeting, duvets and extra pillows are increasingly common. Other add-ons like coffee pots, spa robes and large, hard-to-clean mirrors make room cleaning more difficult and time-consuming. Mattresses can weigh around 100 lbs. or more, and often women are supplied with flat sheets, which—unlike the fitted sheets used at home—require housekeepers to lift these heavy mattresses several times each time they make a bed. Hyatt housekeepers at one hotel report being injured while lifting the new heavy mattresses that the Hyatt installed during renovations of the hotel. The new mattresses are on boards instead of box springs making it much harder for workers to get their hands under the mattresses to lift them to change the sheets.
Hilton and Starwood hotel chains agreed to refrain from interfering when workers organized at certain hotels. Hyatt has not. Since the 2005, over 5,000 workers have joined the union at Hilton and Starwood hotels, whereas only approximately 500 workers at Hyatt have won union recognition from Hyatt during the same time period.
In 2009, nearly 100 housekeepers from three Boston-area hotels, replacing longtime housekeepers with new ones from a temporary agency at far lower rates of pay. Workers at 18 Hyatt Hotels across the United States and Canada have called for boycotts of the hotels where they work. "While Hyatt’s actions may be legal, they are based on an immoral approach to making profits," said Rabbi Barbara Penzner.
This dehumanizing approach to labor management is further clarified by the advertisement used for the outsourcing firm chosen by Hyatt: Hospitality Staffing Solutions (HSS). It presents hospitality workers as if they were items for sale in a vending machine.
Many of the fired Boston housekeepers had worked for Hyatt for over 20 years. Many were required to train their replacements before being fired, being told that their trainees were vacation replacements. Before being fired, the housekeepers had made about $15 an hour plus benefits and cleaned 16 rooms a day. Housekeepers at Hospitality Staffing Solutions (HSS) start at the minimum wage of $8.00 per hour. They reportedly receive no sick days, vacation days, health care or pension, and they are required to clean up to 30 rooms a day.
One of Hyatt Corporation’s most effective weapons that it wields against workers organizing is its use of HSS and other staffing agencies. By contracting with HSS, Hyatt has effectively stripped from workers their fundamental human right to bargain collectively with the employer that actually determines their wages and working conditions.
Recently, the Chicago Hyatt literally turned up the heat on picketing employees during a heat wave in July. By turning on heat lamps, the hotel was trying to stop the employees from carrying signs and bringing attention to this issue. They stopped only when the press arrived.
Several interfaith initiatives have sprung up around the country in response to the Hyatt incidents. “We pledge to treat the Hyatt as lo kasher/not kosher for events and celebrations until it treats its workers with justice,” the Jewish leaders declared. Here is video from one interfaith event late last year at the Chicago Hyatt Regency. (sorry...I don't know how to embed video).
And from the blog at the AFL-CIO
As I sit here in relative comfort on this Labor Day, I wanted to call out the struggles that Hyatt employees continue to face and urge everybody responsible selection the next time you require a hotel.
Hyatt Hotels currently under boycott:
Harborside at Logan International Airport
101 Harborside Dr
Boston, MA 02128
Phone: 617-568-1234
Hyatt Regency Boston
1 Avenue De Lafayette
Boston, MA 02111
Phone: 617-912-1234
Hyatt Regency Cambridge, Overlooking Boston
575 Memorial Dr
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: 617-492-1234
Hyatt Regency Chicago
151 E. Wacker
Chicago, IL 60601
Phone: 312-565-1234
Park Hyatt Chicago
800 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60611
Phone: 312-335-1234
Hyatt Regency Waikiki
2424 Kalakaua Ave.
Honolulu, HI 96815
Phone: 808-923-1234
Hyatt Regency Indianapolis
One South Capitol Ave/Parcel address is 155 West W
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Phone: 317-632-1234
Hyatt Regency Long Beach
200 S. Pine Ave.
Long Beach, CA 90802
Phone: 562-491-1234
Hyatt Regency Century Plaza
2025 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067
Phone: 310-228-1234
Hyatt Regency O'Hare
9300 W. Bryn Mawr
Rosemont, IL 60018
Phone: 847-696-1234
Hyatt Regency Sacramento
1209 L St.
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-443-1234
Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego
One Market Place
San Diego, CA 92101
Phone: 619-232-1234
Grand Hyatt San Francisco
345 Stockton Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
Phone: 415-398-1234
Hyatt Regency San Francisco
5 Embarcadero Center
San Francisco, CA 94111
Phone: 415-788-1234
Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf
555 North Point Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
Phone: 415-563-1234
Hyatt Regency Santa Clara
5101 Great America Parkway
Santa Clara, CA 95054
Phone: 408-200-1234
Hyatt Regency on King
370 King St. West
Toronto, ON M5V 1J9
Phone: 416-599-4000
Andaz West Hollywood
8401 Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Phone: 323-656-1234