Civil Disobedience Raises Stakes in Nationwide Protests against Hyatt

Micah Uetricht contributed to this piece from Chicago.

Hundreds of hotel and restaurant employees and supporters were arrested around the country Thursday in coordinated civil disobedience against the Hyatt Corporation. Fifteen cities saw protests.

In San Francisco, UNITE HERE Local 2 blocked a street in downtown San Francisco for an hour as more than 150 hotel workers, members from other unions, students, and community supporters sat in the street chanting and linking arms before police took them away. Police brought the demonstrators to a shuttle bus which brought them to a nearby police station for processing. They cited them for blocking traffic.

Chicago was among the largest of the actions against the company. As workers and supporters packed the sidewalks in front of the Regency downtown, Hyatt management in suits sweated in the humidity, looking on uncomfortably near a banner that read “We appreciate our associates.” Contract negotiations have dragged on for almost a year, and settlement does not appear within reach.

UNITE HERE focused on Hyatt since its contract proposals still demand wage freezes, hundreds of dollars in increases in monthly family health care premiums, and substandard pensions that leave 30-year veterans living on $900 a month. Hyatt is just one of the several hotel corporations currently in negotiations with UNITE HERE.

"The hotels have not been fair with negotiations,” said Don Olson, a Grand Hyatt restaurant worker in San Francisco since 1980. “All we’re asking for are modest wage increases and to protect our pensions and medical benefits.”

The workload at industry pace-setter Hyatt is intense as well. A study published by the American Journal of Industrial Medicine in February found that housekeepers working at the Hyatt hotels “have a risk of injury twice that of the company with lowest rates.”

The company has also made drastic cuts throughout the country, including firing the “Hyatt 100” in Boston. That layoff wiped out the entire housekeeping staff in Hyatt’s three Boston-area hotels, replacing them with outsourced workers at half the wages. UNITE HERE has campaigned with the non-union workers since then to recover their jobs.

Union and non-union alike, hotel workers across North America have endured layoffs, increased workloads, reduced hours, and injury rates driven up by overwork. Despite reports projecting a recovery for the hotel industry in the first quarter of 2010, 46,000 jobs have still been lost.

HITTING THEM WHERE THEY LIVE

Chicago is home to Hyatt Hotels’ global headquarters, along with the billionaire family that owns the company, the Pritzkers. Little surprise, then, that rage against the company has been strong in the Second City: the Hyatt Regency saw workers stage a three-hour spontaneous walk-out in May, and the heat the company felt at large protests outside their June shareholder meeting led to a media blackout on the event.

After a brief march Thursday, arrestees filed into the street. The group, composed of workers and religious and community leaders, sat down with arms locked. Up to 200 had planned on arrest. Police issued their warnings as workers chanted, “We are human beings! Enough is enough!” A double-decker tour bus paused to observe, and tourists snapped pictures as the guide chanted along. After the second warning, the majority of participants stood up and exited the street—a funeral for a slain officer was soon to start, and the union wanted to reduce officers’ booking times so all could attend.

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About two dozen were arrested, however, including Maggie Kalda, a host at the nearby Blackstone Hotel, where the union and management have battled bitterly for years.

Companies like Hyatt and the Sage, Blackstone’s parent company, are making millions of dollars, she said, “while my co-workers can’t afford their health insurance and are getting their hours cut.”

Kalda said she was proud to be part of an action taking place in so many cities outside Chicago.

“I want corporate structural change. That’s only going to happen if we hit them everywhere,” she said.

FIGHTING ON IN THE BAY

In San Francisco, since the last massive mobilization and demonstration in January, Hilton and Hyatt Regency workers have held three-day strikes. The two hotels are among eight overall in the city where workers have called for a boycott.

Thursday’s action started with a rally and march that began at the Four Seasons Hotel on Market Street and wove throughout downtown. The intent was to alert hotel management that workers want to push forward with contract negotiations, a battle that started last August.

Andy Lopez is a 36-year veteran food server of the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero and on Local 2’s 120-member bargaining committee. He's not happy about the lack of progress in bargaining, adding that he's used all of his paid time off for this year to attend fruitless meetings.

“Negotiations have not been moving—the real decision-makers aren’t even at the table,” Lopez said.

He says big confrontations like Thursday's are necessary to achieve the campaign’s goals.

“Management needs to see we aren’t going away,” he said.