Hotel Workers Rising is long-term organizing campaign, created by UNITE HERE in 2006, aimed at organizing and mobilizing hotel workers to win improvements in the workplace. Demands include higher wages, better benefits, safer workloads, and the right to unionize freely.
Issues
Workers in the hotel industry are mainly women of color and immigrant women. Often these women describe feeling "invisible"â€"expected to clean relentlessly without presenting a human face to hotel guests. According to the workers, this status is connected to extremely poor working conditions and unreasonable expectations.
Injury Rates in Hotels
According to a report issued by the group hotel workers are "more than 48% more likely to be injured on the job than the typical service worker" and more than 51 percent more likely to experience disabling injuries.
Within the industry, hotel housekeepers experience an injury rate 86 percent higher than non-housekeepers, according to the same study.
Wages
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average hourly wage for housekeepers in the U.S. is $8.67. In New York city and San Francisco, California, where union density in this sector is 85 percent, the average hourly wage is $20.00 and $15.09, respectively.
In Phoenix, Arizona, where UNITE HERE's density is 5 percent, the average hourly wage is $7.60.
Right to unionize
Many hotel workers are non-union, and the campaign has accused many hotels and hotel companies of intimidation and union busting.
Developments
UNITE HERE began its "Hotel Workers Rising" campaign in 2006, based on projections of rising hotel profits over the next eight years.
Non-union hotel workers have also conducted a series of wildcat strike actions with some success.
Allies
The Hotel Workers Rising campaign has garnered the support of individuals and community organizations outside of the labor movement. John Edwards and Danny Glover have both appeared at various events endorsing the goals of the campaign. For its recent Hyatt Hurts campaign, Hotel Workers Rising has formed alliances with many different groups, including the National Organization for Women, MoveOn.org, and the National Football Players Association.
UNITE HERE has allied with LGBT rights activists creating the "Sleep With the Right People" slogan and collaborating on projects of mutual interest. The groups orchestrated a successful joint campaign (which involved a "Kiss-In" as well as a boycott) against the San Diego Grand Hyatt, whose owner Doug Manchester was a major supporter of California Proposition 8. (GOProud, a conservative gay organization, criticized the "gay left" for its "slavish loyalty to big labor".)
Employers
Hyatt
The campaign has focused particularly on Hyatt hotels, and added its support to longstanding boycotts against Hyatt hotels internationally.
HEI
Hotel Workers Rising has intensified its focus on HEI Hotels & Resorts, a major hotel manager. Pressure in 2012 caused a number of universitiesâ€"including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Brownâ€"to divest from the company.
Workers have been protesting at an Embassy Suites hotel in Irvine, CA, owned by MassMutual, which has not allowed them unionize. In September 2012, the hotel's administrators (Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers) replaced HEI with Hostmark as the management company; workers went on strike to protest the bad conditions which, in their view, remained in place regardless of the company in charge.
References
External links
UNITE HERE and allies
- UNITE HERE International Union
- UNITE HERE Canada
- Hotel Workers Rising
- Sleep With The Right People
- Hyatt Hurts
Opposed to the campaign
- "Hyatt Sets Record Straight on UniteHere Campaign " â€" Text of a newspaper advertisement run by Hyatt, 23 July 2012
- "Hyatt treats its employees fairly" â€" Op-Ed by Gail Smith-Howard, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Baltimore; Baltimore Sun, 10 September 2012
News
- "Hotel Workers Rising - Westin Hotel Victory" in the Puget Sound Sage, 2007
- "Don't Get Caught in A Bad Hotel" â€" documents a Lady Gagaâ€"inspired musical intervention at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco
- Interview with Cleve Jones, a UNITE HERE boycott organizer; conducted by Amy B. Dean, Truthout, 17 August 2012
- Joey Quits â€" "Hotel and Restaurant Worker Stories and News"
