UNITE HERE faces a major challenge with Hyatt Hotels Corp given the company’s treatment of Union and non-union workers. For example:
Hyatt is attempting to make the recession permanent for thousands of their unionized workers.
In several North American cities including Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles Hyatt is, for example, proposing major cuts in the established health insurance benefits for its unionized employees.
Hyatt has been using the recession as an excuse to roll-back standards despite the signs of economic recovery for the hotel industry. Contracts have also expired in Vancouver, Toronto, Honolulu, Rosemont (IL) and Burlingame California.
In Boston Hyatt fired approximately 100 longtime employees.
On August 31, 2009, Hyatt fired approximately 100 room cleaners in its three Boston area hotels. The longtime employees were replaced with subcontracted employees who were paid the minimum wage.
Many of the fired workers report that Hyatt required that they train their replacements. Workers report that Hyatt managers told them that the subcontracted workers would only be used to cover vacations and weekends, but in fact the workers were their permanent replacements.
The subcontracted employees now clean as many as 30 rooms a day. Few if any of the subcontracted workers receive health insurance.
Workers in several cities have asked for a fair process to select a union. Hyatt has refused.
In Indianapolis, San Antonio, Santa Clara, San Francisco and Long Beach, workers have called on Hyatt to accept a fair process to enable them to choose whether or not to join a union without employer intimidation. Hyatt has refused.
Workers in non-union facilities complain of disrespect from their management, low wages, unaffordable health insurance and high room quotas for room cleaners.
The Grand Hyatt San Antonio recently settled a NLRB complaint which alleged that workers had been intimidated and retaliated against for participating in legally protected union activities.
Hyatt agreed to rehire and pay back pay to workers fired during an organizing drive at the San Antonio Grand Hyatt.
A published study of 50 US hotels demonstrated that housekeepers at Hyatt hotels were more likely to be injured on the job than housekeepers at hotels of other major companies, in the hotels studied.
A study of hotel worker injuries from 50 US 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.
The study also found that Hispanic housekeepers had the highest injury rate of all housekeepers, making them almost twice as likely to be injured as white housekeepers in the hotels studied.
UNITE HERE’s Response
In response, UNITE HERE is organizing to protect Union and non-union Hyatt workers. Workers are standing up to the company in 5 public organizing campaigns thus far at Hyatt properties in California, Indiana and Texas. Union workers in the seven cities across North America where contracts have expired have also been taking a stand to improve on their hard won gains with this employer and to ensure that Hyatt’s workers participate in the economic recovery already under way in the hotel sector.
On July 22, thousands of hotel workers in 15 cities across North America held public demonstrations, protesting Hyatt’s efforts to make the recession permanent for workers, despite significantly improving industry conditions and Hyatt's rising share value.
Hyatt is controlled by the billionaire Pritzker Family of Chicago. Penny Pritzker is the most high profile member of the family as President Obama’s national finance chair and a member of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board. UNITE HERE is working to ensure that Hyatt contributes to economic recovery rather than undermining it.
Several International Unions have already demonstrated their support for Hyatt workers.
The AFL-CIO asks that all affiliates continue that support for as long as it takes for Hyatt workers to achieve fair contracts and a fair process for unionization.