www.newsandletters.org
|
|
NEWS & LETTERS, JULY 2003
Chicago hotel strike
Chicago--We went on strike June 15. The contract with
the Congress Hotel ended at the end of last year, and we were trying to
negotiate a new one, but the owner of the Congress Hotel, Albert Nasser, cut our
wages by 7% in May. He also cut off our health insurance. We were earning $8 an
hour before walking out. Over three quarters of the people have been here more
than 10 years, but others have moved around, and know what it’s like
elsewhere. And lots of the women, and men, have another job, besides working at
Congress Hotel. They need both jobs. One woman worked eight years at another
hotel and has been here for two years. Nasser is cheap. He was using scab labor to rehab rooms
here, but the city found out the scabs weren’t qualified to do the plumbing
and electrical work, so they had to stop. Nasser has spent lots of money, just
not on a fair contract. He had the scabs put in marble bathrooms, tear up the
carpeting, and install soundproofing for the apartments of Nasser’s assistant,
Sholomo and his son. And scabs are staying at the hotel. Sholomo brought them
in to do our jobs, but it takes two of them to do the work of each one of us.
And the Congress Hotel is paying them $11 an hour. The hotel should be putting
that money behind a new contract instead. The hotel has been making us work harder so they can
spend less. The elevators we are supposed to use are always breaking down. That
means the employees have to carry luggage up and down the stairs. This north
tower has 12 floors and the south tower has 14. Guests are mad about taking the
stairs too. Housekeeping is usually supposed take care of 16 rooms
in an eight hour shift, but when it gets busy, which is most of the time, we
can’t refuse to clean more, sometimes over 30 rooms. We only get $4 for every
extra room. There are only three supervisors in the whole hotel. The
housekeepers have to run all over the hotel looking for the supervisors when
they need help because Nasser is too cheap to hire more supervisors. So far we have turned away some guests at the front
door. One man told management to give us a contract. The rest of the members of Hotel Employees and
Restaurant Employees Local 1 around the city won a new contract last year. They
make $10 an hour, going up to $12 later. That’s all we’re asking for, along
with our insurance back. Workers from other hotels support our strike, too. We
had hundreds with us in front of the hotel one Sunday. If we stayed quiet, maybe they would take away our
vacation, then something else, then maybe kick out the union. We are on strike
for the rights of workers at the other hotels too. --Strikers |
|
Home l News & Letters Newspaper l Back issues l News and Letters Committees l Dialogues l Raya Dunayevskaya l Contact us l Search Published by News and Letters Committees |
