Portland, OR
This Executive Council has determined that support for its affiliates' organizing efforts and the growth of the labor movement is the first priority of the AFL-CIO. In the hotel industry, as in other industries, low-wage employees, many of whom are women and immigrants, are eager to organize their workplaces, and the labor movement will help these workers improve their jobs and better the lives of their families.
Housekeepers, cooks, waiters and other low-wage workers employed by the New Otani Hotel and Garden in Los Angeles have been struggling for several years to organize their union with the help of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 11. These workers are fighting for a union because they are tired of low wages and poor benefits, tired of having no job security, seniority protections or retirement benefits, and they are tired of the unfairness, harassment and disrespect they endure on the job.
In response to the organizing drive, New Otani's management has launched a vicious anti-union campaign that has included intimidation, harassment and illegal firings of union supporters along with such scare tactics as videotaping and spying on employees on the job.
The controlling owner of the New Otani, the Japan-based Kajima Corporation, has failed to respond to an international call that the parent company put a stop to its Los Angeles hotel management's anti-union tactics.
The New Otani Hotel has been charged with violating U.S. labor law when it fired three housekeepers with sixteen years of good job performance in retaliation for being leaders of the union organizing campaign.
The hotel's anti-union campaign has generated so much fear and apprehension among the workers that it has chilled any chance for a free, fair NLRB election, so there is an urgent need for an alternative process for the New Otani workers to vote for unionization.
HERE's campaign at the New Otani Hotel is one of the most important organizing struggles in Los Angeles, and it is a model for other organizing among low-wage, immigrant workers. This organizing struggle has received the support of the national AFL-CIO, many affiliated unions, the Los Angeles labor movement, many community allies and other trade union centers around the world. The AFL-CIO will continue to support HERE in its efforts here and in Japan to help the New Otani workers win this struggle for justice.
The AFL-CIO Executive Council calls on the management of the New Otani Hotel to immediately end its anti-union tactics and recognize the legal and moral right of its employees to make their own decisions about organizing a union.
We call on the hotel to act quickly to sign a neutrality agreement with HERE Local 11 that includes a pledge to cease all anti-union activities and to allow the employees an expedited vote on a union by card-check procedures.
Further, we call on the hotel to rehire with back-pay all workers illegally fired for leading the organizing drive.
The AFL-CIO endorses HERE's boycott of the New Otani Hotel and Gardens in Los Angeles, and we urge all affiliates to encourage their members to support this action. Further, we will ask the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the Japan Trade Union Confederation and other trade union centers worldwide to join in this action and to boycott all non-union hotels in the New Otani chain.