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Indybay Feature

UNITE HERE! Local 2 Hits the Streets Again

by Bill Hackwell (hckwll [at] yahoo.com)
Around 1500 members of UNITE HERE! Local 2 and their supporters demonstrated in San Francisco culminating in a mass civil disobedience in front of the Grand Hyatt in Union Square that resulted in the arrest of 150 people.


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The demonstration in San Francisco was one of 15 that took place around North America . The Hyatt Hotel corporation is making millions of dollars by demanding that the hotel workers get locked into recession contracts that include layoffs and increased workloads. In San Francisco the Hyatt is still demanding hundreds of dollars in contributions to monthly family healthcare premiums as well as reduced pensions and wages. The protest in San Francisco had significant support from other unions and community and anti war groups including the ANSWER Coalition.
§Stop Corporate Greed
by Bill Hackwell
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§Winning Together
by Bill Hackwell
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§The Shame of Hyatt
by Bill Hackwell
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§Strong Support for the Hotel Workers
by Bill Hackwell
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§Support from the Chinese Community
by Bill Hackwell
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§In Front of the Hyatt
by Bill Hackwell
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§Blocking Stockton
by Bill Hackwell
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§Multi National Workers
by Bill Hackwell
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§The Dignity of the Women Who Clean All Those Rooms
by Bill Hackwell
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§Strong Support As People Wear Arrested
by Bill Hackwell
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§Chef Arrested For Demanding a Fair Contract
by Bill Hackwell
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Comments (Hide Comments)
by Stop the Staging
This whole arrest show was clearly staged and carefully coordinated with the police and has nothing to do with diminishing the profits of the hotels. There is no substitute for going on strike and shutting down the hotels, and if the hotels do not sign a union contract within 1 week, then expanding the strike to a general strike. This is the height of the summer tourist season, a good time to lower the profits of the hotel owners. The police even had prepared printed "no parking signs" for Sutter Street near Stockton for 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on July 22, 2010; they had 2 Muni buses on standby on Stockton at Sutter to load the arrested people, and the arrests all took place in 1 hour, after which they were released with a minor citation. The hundreds of police in full riot gear worth thousands of dollars, and each cop making at least $100,000 a year plus overtime and benefits, escorted this small crowd of about 1,000 of people (at the most) from various unions (not just hotel workers, who number at least 4,000 in San Francisco) and supporters, from the 4 Seasons Hotel on Market, onto Grant, Geary, Stockton. The police had spent the previous hours at Union Square, including one cop who rode his bicycle into Union Square where there were lots of people, onto the grass uphill to the stage, causing the taxpayer-funded bicycle a lot of stress, and demonstrating that this cop, like all cops, was a hoodlum. No decent person becomes a cop. For labor to coordinate anything with the police means this is not a serious labor action but a publicity stunt and that is why we have no labor movement, a declining economy, police brutality, wars abroad, fascism at home.
by Maceo
I think the previous post overeacts a bit in dismissing any action that's short of a full strike action . For example in Britain in the 70's and 80's '' Rule to work '' was a effective tactic that the Labor movement often used to block corporate attacks on workers.
And CD can be very useful IF it isn't a pre-arranged staged event . (For example the performance of the Pro-Union takeoff of Lady Ga Ga's '' Bad Hotel '' interfered with ''business as usual '', albeit temporarily , in a way that both entertained and educated the 'public )
Face it Union leaders, at a time when workers need unions more than ever there's widespread skepticism among Union members that the leaders have the cojones to actually fight . And i don't mean just in the scandal ridden SEIU .
by ...anyway
Unions have their problems, as large organizations will. I have this bumpersticker on my car, just to remind people who are quick to dis the unions: "Unions! the people who brought you the 40 hour work week"
by Maceo
Thanks '' Anyway ''
I like Unions but really wish there were a law today giving everyone a 40 hour work week. Is not just lacking for salaried workers and contract workers but also for many specific types of jobs. In fact "Out of approximately 120 million American workers, nearly 50 million are exempt from overtime laws"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtime#Federal_overtime_law

Ok.... off to get ready for my 45-50 hour work week
by Stop the Staging
The No Parking signs on Sutter Street, which remained there over the weekend after the Thursday theatrics, stated the reason for the no parking sign was "the Local 2 demonstration." This is not a labor action; this is a police enrichment program at budget time to make sure the San Francisco Police Department does not experience layoffs or complete, long overdue closure, as is taking place in many other cities. The police cannot eliminate crime as the cause of street crime is not the lack of police but poverty. Pre-arranged sitting in the street to get arrested by $100,000 a year police in thousands of dollars of riot gear so the arrested person can get cited and released immediately thereafter all in time to make the TV evening news is not labor organizing is an insulting publicity stunt and a police promotional. This whole show was a complete waste of thousands of our tax dollars desperately need by the workingclass for social services and had absolutely nothing to do with labor organizing whatsoever.
by ...moi...
You said above..."This whole show was a complete waste of thousands of our tax dollars desperately need by the workingclass for social services"....So if people stop protesting that money that paid the police force will definitely go to the working class for social services? If only it were so! The demonstrators do not make the police come out in great force. That is a city decision to spend the money that way, and NOT where it could be spent. You suggest that by stifling free speech things will be better for working class citizens. Not gonna happen!
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