by Juliana Birnbaum Fox
Workers score a win – Workers and labor activists celebrate after a judge ruled in their favor against Woodfin Hotel (photo courtesy of working East Bay)
The Emeryville City Council voted unanimously in a special hearing on August 27th, ordering the Woodfin Suites Hotel to pay about $300,000 in fines and back wages to workers. In a milestone for the protracted battle between the hotel and its housekeeping staff which has brought immigrant and living wage issues to the forefront of city politics, the Council’s rejection of the Woodfinís appeal of an earlier decision is final.
After a rally outside the city hall, over 200 workers, supporters and activists packed the hearing, crowding both of the hall’s chambers and the overflow basement. For months, workers and activists have picketed the hotel, demanding that the company pay back wages to housekeepers who were illegally underpaid under the Cityís living wage law.
The Woodfin has until September 14th to pay the wages and the fines, though they have announced that they wonít accept this decision. If the hotel refuses to obey, Emeryville would have to sue to make them pay.
The saga at the hotel began last Dec. 11 when the hotel put 21 immigrant workers on two-week paid leave after workers demanded that the hotel comply with Emeryville’s 2005 living wage ordinance. It then fired the workers, claiming that their Social Security numbers did not match government records. Earlier this year, the city of Emeryville conducted an investigation of the workers’ claims that they were retaliated against and that they are owed a substantial amount of back wages.
“This is not charity these are wages that the workers earned for themselves and deserve to be paid,” said Brooke Anderson, Organizing Director at the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy, speaking to KTVU news.
Luz, who worked at Woodfin for 3 years and has become a spokesperson on the issue, said that for years the hotel never questioned her immigration status, until the workers began to ask that the hotel comply with the city wage regulations. When Woodfin fired the 21 workers, it justified the action by saying that they were afraid of Immigration, though it was later revealed that the hotel had used its influence with the Republican party to call in the immigration authorities themselves. Woodfin’s lawyer Bruno Katz, who was escorted out of the hearing at one point for speaking out of turn, made a statement backing up the hotel’s actions as an effort to comply with Immigration and C For the past two decades employers have threatened, and often implemented, similar terminations across the nation.
“Firings for no-match discrepancies are a misuse of the Social Security database,” reported David Bacon in The Nation. “Employers have used those efforts as pretexts to discharge employees when they organize unions, demand better wages and try to enforce labor standards, or simply to replace higher-paid workers with lower-paid ones.”
“We do not have the workers our economy needs to keep growing each year,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez said at a recent press conference. “The demographics simply are not on our side. Ultimately, Congress will have to pass comprehensive immigration reform.”
