Hotel Striker Attacked!!!!

Are you sure it wasn't a Teamster? Maybe an AFL-CIO attack goon?

the only local union known to attack other union members is seiu's local 911.

go figure.

No, it was the security guards.

he was obviously trying to escalate the situation. everybody down at that picket, just bring a camera. Makes a great little defensive weapon, if you know what I mean.

I haven't been on the Fisherman's Wharf picket lines but if the scabs there are anything like the ones at the palace they sure as hell aren't hotel workers. The guys at the palace look like real thugs, rent a thugs. I don't like to stereotype but there are too many real buff ones for this to be a coincidence although I heard they are the hotel owners employees flown in from his hotel in Hawaii

It's a shame that people speak before they get the facts! The hotel guest was incited by the hotel works and when he came down from his room he had a bottle in his hands. Things got worse and a fight between the guest and all the picketers broke out. It was the hotel security who pulled the guy away before he got him self killed and he was arrested. No police pursuit, no security thugs.

What is your connection to the situation, passerby, striker, or? Also, what time did this happen.

The attacker is a security guard. He and the other guards are there all the time during the pickets. Granted the picketing is rather annoying and all, and like I said before I am not fully supportive of all of the union's demands. However, these kinds of actions are unacceptable. No there was no high speed Hollywood style pursuit if that's what you thought but the attacker left the scene and returned and then left again. The LEOs went looking for him immediatley when someone identified him. Again, I don't have details as to what lead up to this, but all I know this does not work in favor of the hotel that's for sure. As for me, I'm just a passerby that saw some fucked up shit. Please don't manipulate my conveyance as taking sides or what not. For those on strike or locked out, please do not take offense that I am not supportive of all the issues. I just thought what happened was fucked up and should be made known, supporters or not. I'm surprised it's not in the news.

You keep saying that "you dont have all the facts" so how can you be so adimant that you know what happened? As for the details that led up to this, Were you there when the hotel guest poured water on the picketers? Or did you hear when the picketers call the guest the "N" word and threatened to come up there and kill him? I didnt think so. No security guards were arrested nor were they attacking anyone. And of course the security guards are there during the pickets, that is what they have been hired for. Now if the story went as you would like to think it did, it would be in the news.

What is your connection to what happened? If for instance, you were a scab for the hotel, it might color our opinion of what you're saying. If you're not a scab or management just say so

A couple of my friends work at hotels and informed me of the strike a little before they happended. When I asked they all said that they did not want to go on strike but were obligated to do so. I inquired more about exactly what was happening at the hotels and decided to apply for a temp position at a hotel. I am a scab.
I have read many articles on the strike and almost all of them favor the strikers. Why? According to this website's article the Hilton's could afforf to pay everyone a little extra money so why don't they? Congradulations!!! That is the dumbest thing I have heard for a while. For those of you reading this who do not own your own buisness, your boss probably has more money than you do right? So demand more money!!! If your boss refuses then walk out for 2 weeks. What happens when you come back and try to work again like nothing happend? You habe no job. Someone else is doing your job now. That person STOLE YOUR job? No, you fucked up and got yourself fired.
The benifits at the hotels never changed so I think they have no right to be doing what they're doing. What do most people do when they are not satisfied with their jobs? They go out and find new ones!!!
Boo hoo for all the poor people on strike against the evil hotel chains. Let me honk to show my support for them. Let me read online about the horrible security gaurds beating up the unfortunate strikers. Did you hear about how the hotel's service is going down the toilet right now? These are just a few of the things that enrage me at this paticular time. In the 23 weeks I've been working I have heard one customers complain about the service at the hotel. Every other complaint I hear is about the strikers. Do you bleeding heart strike supporters realise that people from all over the world are having their opinions of San Francisco tainted because of the picket lines? I have been shoved and bumped trying to get luggage to cars. A guest was slapped in the back of the head on one such mission. I have seen a baby start screaming after a megaphone weilding striker screamed in her ear (I do believe it was an accident though). Why do you support them? Have you even thought about the issue? Or are you people just trying to stand for something to feel better about yourselves? 'I support those protesters, I honked, I'm a righteous person.' You make me sick.
I have so much to say but that's it for now.

<<According to this website's article the Hilton's could afforf to pay everyone a little extra money so why don't they? Congradulations!!! That is the dumbest thing I have heard for a while. For those of you reading this who do not own your own buisness, your boss probably has more money than you do right? So demand more money!!! If your boss refuses then walk out for 2 weeks. What happens when you come back and try to work again like nothing happend? You habe no job. Someone else is doing your job now. That person STOLE YOUR job? No, you fucked up and got yourself fired.>>

This dumb-bell attempt at mockery could just as easily have been directed at workers who fought for the 8-hour day or safety regulations on the job or the outlawing of child labor in factories--all things, i'm sure, our proud scab takes for granted.

I mean, the bosses who demanded a 14-hour day in return for a pittance had more money than their workers! (Talk about a stupid claim to make on behalf of scabbing.) If the workers didn't like this treatment they should have just found another equally shitty and exploitative job elsewhere! So goes the "argument" of a scab: It's really nothing more than a shameless defense of opportunism draped in the smug "certitudes" of an imbecile.

But what should we expect from a lousy, contemptible scab?

Dear Aaron,
This is the scab again. Hello. I'm sorry but I got nothing out of your comment. Your first paragraph is nothing new to me. Please don't assume anything about my mindstate. All of those pro-union arguments are all I ever hear about from pro-union people. This is 2004, a long way from those events. Does your comment suggest that because of those facts we should blindly follow the unions, and that all unions are good? Try and research the N.E.A. and get back to me with your answer. Your second paragraph...I'm sorry I just couldn't follow it very well. You just seemed to reiterate what the attitude I was speaking of. Maybe next time you should concentrate on the substance of your comment instead of looking up big words in a thesaurus.

So are you a teacher? The NEA comment tends to imply that.

Yes unions are not perfect. You are so smart. Is anything in this world perfect?

Most people wish is was so easy as going out and getting another job which is better, but things aren't that simple. Hotel jobs aren't completely bad in SF because of all the struggles that hotel workers and their union have gone through over the years. If it wasn't for them and other workers standing up right now and going on strike employers would wipe away all the things that they have gained in the last 30 years or so. If you are such a smart person you might remember the civil rights movement of the 60s and the fight to open up hotel jobs to black folks. That struggle was somewhat succesful for a while, as a lot of black folks ended up getting decent jobs in the hotels through the years, but now the hotels mostly employ immigrants in there effort to find folks that are most easily exploited. It's an old strategy of divide and conquer that employers have been playing for a really long time. Some people fall for all the employers' stupid little tricks and complaints, like yourself, whereas others stick together and struggle for a more perfect union and better jobs. If they didn't do this as workers they would most likely be on the run, going from one job to the next, and finding that the jobs just get shittier and shittier or end up leaving the country all together to exploit workers in some other country.

Take a stand and join us. An Injury to One, is An Injury to All.

I think these abstract debates are tedious. Come out and give concrete, substantial expression to your solidarity.

This Sunday, October 24, 7:00 PM at Powell & Geary. We'll try to join as many pickets at as many hotels as we can. I think the human, face-to-face solidarity is the best way to show our support and working class unity.

Hope to see you all there.

gifford