SF Hotel Workers Continue to Fight Back

We are the roomcleaners, cooks, dishwashers, bussers, bellpersons, servers, bartenders and other hotel workers who have always been happy to serve you at more than 60 San Francisco hotels. But now we ask you to boycott seven hotels in our city.

Since August 2009, we have been fighting to get a fair deal with the corporations that run some of San Francisco's biggest hotels. Despite the economic downturn, the hotel industry remains fundamentally profitable, both in San Francisco and nationally.

But companies like Hyatt, Starwood, and Hilton want to pretend none of this matters. They are trying to churn even more profits by squeezing workers like us.

http://www.unitehere2.org/

We are not going to stand for the corporations' excuses. They don't need to take away affordable family health care to ensure the "health" of their businesses. As a result, over the past few months San Francisco hotels have seen picketlines, civil disobedience, and strikes.
Dozens of organizations, big and small, have decided to stay out of this labor dispute and use a different venue. If you have a reservation or an event at the following hotels, you should move to another hotel immediately. Please contact us for information and help.
Hilton San Francisco Union Square
Grand Hyatt
Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf*
Le Meridien Hotel*
Palace Hotel
Westin St. Francis
W Hotel

http://www.unitehere2.org/

Local 2 has been negotiating and conducting street actions since August, in pursuit of modest increases to sustain health care and retirement benefits for a one-year period. Though such a contract would mean just a 1.5 percent increase in labor costs during that time, none of the major hotel corporations that dominate the market have expressed interest in settling. Meanwhile, the union says, the Hilton's parent corporation, The Blackstone Group, said recently it has $12.6 billion in available capital, and paid its CEO $1.39 billion in 2008, while Starwood Hotels reported $180 million in profits for the first nine months of 2009, and Hyatt Hotels netted nearly $1 billion in a November public share offering.

The hotel workers earlier called for boycotts of the Grand Hyatt, Palace, Westin St. Francis and W hotels. Local 2 represents some 12,000 hospitality industry workers in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, including some 9,000 who work in San Francisco hotels.

http://www.peoplesworld.org/hotel-workers-sit-in-proclaim-san-francisco-hilton-boycott/

Refusal to come to an agreement with the modest demands of the union is producing growing public outrage because hotels have been profitable the last few years. In fact, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers, profits soared nationally to over $200 billion in the last decade.

While each of the 61 city hotels in San Francisco has chosen to negotiate separately with the union, the corporations that run many of the largest remain united in demands to shift more health care costs to employees, increase workloads and reduce staffing. They have rejected Local 2's minimum one-year contract proposal. In Hilton's case, the whole package would cost just $550,000 this year, or around a 1.5 percent increase in labor costs.

"We've proposed the cheapest contract in the union's history while the corporations continue to make millions," said John Elrod, a bartender at the W Hotel. "I think the hotel workers have sacrificed enough. It's time the hotel corporations realize that we're not going to give up."

http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/07/taking-on-the-hilton