por el personal de El Reportero
Hotel workers and community allies rallied at the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco to demand an end to Hyatt’s abuse of workers. (PHOTO BY JULIA WONG)
Bay Area hotel workers rallied and marched last Labor Day to celebrate worker solidarity and protest abuse in San Francisco and Santa Clara. Hotel workers, members of Bay Area unions, religious leaders, and community allies highlighted the abuses of Hyatt Hotels.
Hyatt has distinguished itself as the worst employer in the hotel industry, garnering criticism for practices that include imposing dangerous workloads on room cleaners, firing career housekeepers to replace them with temporary, minimum wage workers, and turning heat lamps on striking workers in Chicago during a brutal heat wave. In Santa Clara, Hyatt workers are struggling to achieve a fair process to decide whether or not to form a union. In San Francisco, workers at the Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency are demanding the right to stand in solidarity with other Hyatt workers across the United States and protest Hyatt’s abuses, wherever they occur.
As convention season heats up, the disputes with Hyatt are escalating. Workers at the Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt Fisherman’s Wharf, and Hyatt Santa Clara have called for boycotts of their hotels, and workers at the Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency are preparing to go on strike again.
“I have chronic pain in my shoulders and elbows from cleaning 14 rooms a day,” says Antonia Cortez, a 35-year housekeeper at the Grand Hyatt. “In some cities, Hyatt makes housekeepers clean 30 rooms a day. We all work for the same company. I want the right to take action for Hyatt housekeepers no matter where they work.”
Other demonstrations took place in hotels during last years. In one of them, hotel workers rallied and marched to the San Francisco Hilton demanding a fair contract on Jan. 5. 2010. Over 100 protesters were then arrested for sitting in and blocking the doors. The action culminated in the launch of a boycott of the hotel, one of the city’s most luxurious.
