Feature Archives

Jacobins armed with baguettes, pots and pans and cymbals formed a gauntlet outside San Francisco's Palace Hotel to greet socialite guests in formal attire making a beeline for the caviar bar through Local-2 picket lines. The Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra honored the picket lines, but the benefit/auction event went forward. Locked out Local 2 banquet waiters who have worked this event in past years and community supporters gave the scab guests the welcome they deserved. Video

Upcoming picket actions supporting hotel worker's fight for healthcare and bargaining power include a rally on Nov. 20, 11 a.m., at Union Square and the weekly flying pickets held every Sunday evening at 7 p.m.

The Sheraton Palace Hotel, originally a haven of black employment, kicked out its black workers en masse in the late 1880s after pressure from white unions. In the early 1960s, a years-long civil rights campaign involving sit-ins, court injunctions and hundreds of arrests eventually forced the Palace Hotel to de-segregate.

From Santa Cruz Indymedia - On Wednesday, November 10, hundreds of people demonstrated and bargined at UC Santa Cruz for better wages and working conditions for AFSCME members at the nine University of California (UC) campuses and five medical centers. Local 3299 AFSCME members (American, Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees) are employed by the UC to serve food; clean bathrooms, dorms, labs, offices, and hospitals; drive shuttle buses, and park cars.

In addition to a large rally in the Baytree Plaza, AFSCME workers, UC students and community members entered the bargining meeting that took place in Conference Room D above the Baytree Bookstore.

Photos: Workers, Students and Community Members Rally in Baytree Plaza I Estudiantes y Trabajadores Undios a UCSC Audio: UC Bargining Committee Hears from Workers and Supporters

Previous IMC Coverage: 5/20/04: UC Workers Hold Statewide Marches | 10/17/04: UC Service Workers Converge on Berkeley Campus

Revolution at the Palace: 11/13 at 5:30 p.m., Market & Montgomery
Rally & Picket: 11/20 at 11 a.m., Union Square
Flying Picket: 11/21 at 7 p.m., Powell & Geary
On 11/07, Local 2 hotel workers took the struggle to the Monterey Hyatt, one of many sources of scab labor for the locked-out hotels. Local 2 formed a picket line for one day, and most workers stayed home, refusing to cross the picket line. The Falluja protest in San Francisco on 11/09 was also a solidarity protest for the locked out hotel workers; the march went past several hotels and the crowd chanted in support of the workers getting a contract. Photos On 11/07, dozens of San Franciscans took to the streets as part of a "flying picket" in solidarity with locked-out hotel workers, expanding the picket lines and giving scabs a proper San Francisco "not-welcome." Video

4,000 hotel workers are locked-out of the Argent Hotel, Crowne Plaza Union Square, Fairmont San Francisco, Four Seasons San Francisco, Grand Hyatt, Hilton San Francisco, Holiday Inn Civic Center, Holiday Inn Express (FW), Holiday Inn Fisherman's Wharf, Hyatt Regency San Francisco, Mark Hopkins InterContinental, Omni San Francisco Hotel, Sheraton Palace Hotel, and Westin St. Francis hotels. UNITE HERE Local 2 is negotiating to maintain fair wages, pensions, and comprehensive health care for workers and their families. Labor page

Craigslist has received some criticism on its feedback forum for running scab job ads on behalf of SF's locked-out hotels. By advertising for the temporary strikebreakers, Craigslist, often described as a "progressive community," has in effect engaged in "an electronic form of crossing the picket line" and assisted the employers in continuing their lockout, according to the feedback.

Contacted directly, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark has been reluctant to ban the ads outright without first conferring with local politicos in City Hall, who have been heavily involved in negotiation efforts between hotel workers' Local 2 and management. Peter Ragone, spokesman for Mayor Newsom and former spokesman for Gov. Davis' anti-recall campaign, said on Oct. 19th that "things looked good," and asked Craigslist to check back in a couple days; "At this point, anything inflammatory can screw up negotiations." Since then, hotel management, known as the Multi-Employer Group, failed to show up at a Board of Supervisor's hearing for the second week in a row, and rejected Newsom's proposal for a 90-day cooling-off period, drawing yet another lambasting by Tom Ammiano and other city Supervisors.

The Craigslist Foundation, a "platform for social philanthropy," is hosting a "VIP Reception" tonight, 10/23 at, Terra, 511 Harrison Street. Labor activists have called for another flying picket in solidarity with the locked-out workers for Sunday, 10/24, starting at Powell and Geary at 7 p.m.

10/18/04: Union members from across the country gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial yesterday for a rally dubbed the Million Worker March, assembling in smaller-than-expected numbers but making a passionate plea for workers' rights.

Linking their struggle with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. by standing on the same spot where the slain civil rights leader made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963, workers from a variety of trades and causes said King's vision of social and economic equality remains more dream than reality.

"The majority of working people in America are not doing well," said Clarence Thomas, 57, a crane operator on the Oakland, Calif., docks and a leader of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 in San Francisco, a key organizer of yesterday's rally. "With jobs being offshored, outsourced, privatized, our young people are looking at a much more dismal future."
DC Indymedia Coverage | Video Coverage | DC Radio Coop Audio Coverage of March and the Preceeding Open Mic Benefit Performances and the International Delegations' Reception 1 2 3 4 | Previous Coverage on Indybay

10/17/04: During UC Berkeley's homecoming football game on Saturday, a banner flew over the stadium reading, "Be fair to low-wage workers." Roughly 300 service employees from all the UC campuses rallied at UCB beginning Friday afternoon at Sproul Plaza, highlighting a report recently released by a group of Berkeley sociology graduate students. The report, called Berkeley's Betrayal, said the campus pays and treats its service workers poorly, and includes statistics of those earning less than a living wage.

It cited 66 percent of Berkeley food service workers earning less than $10.76 an hour and 100 percent of them earning less than $16.88 an hour. Among all service workers at UCB, 20 percent earn less than $10.76 an hour, and 87 percent earn less than $16.88 an hour. The starting wage for food servers at Berkeley is $9.11 per hour. The living wage for a family of four in the Bay Area is $16.88 when each parent is working, according to a recent press release from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Though the report was done only on the Berkeley campus, UC service workers from across the state say the problem doesn't only exist at Berkeley.
Other Coverage: SF Indymedia 1 2 | Daily Cal - Service Workers Protest UC | Daily Aggie - UC Staff Union protests at Telegraph and Bancroft | Daily Planet - UC Workers Plan Protest Over Expired Contracts

It has been a year of struggles for working people in the Greater Solano County Area. Diebold tried (and failed) to convince the public to accept touch screen machines, Benicia tried (and failed) to build a 22 million dollar jail while their schools went broke, now Wal Mart is trying to build a super center in American Canyon and Valero is replacing unionized workers. While oil profits climb to unseen heights, Valero Corporation is insisting on hiring over 800 non-union, temporary workers to replace formerly union jobs. Labor activists worry that these non-union workers will slowly replace more and more unionized workers not only at Valero but at the other area refineries as well.

Valero has subcontracted the replacement workers through a company called Altair Strickland. Workers and supporters are demanding that Valero end its contract with Altair Strickland and instead use a contractor that hires unionized, local labor. A community support rally on the picket line was called for 7 a.m. on Friday, 10/08 at 3655 Park Rd, Benicia; workers gathered at 5 a.m. Details