Clergy group boycotts Rochester's Crowne Plaza Hotel

[Omaha Steve]

http://catholiccourier.com/tmp1.cfm?nid=78&articleid=100197

(Publication Date: 03-07-2008)

By Amy Kotlarz/Catholic Courier

A clergy group advocating for increased wages and more affordable benefits for workers at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Rochester kicked off a boycott of the facility March 1 with a sidewalk rally outside the hotel.

The local group Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice has been threatening a boycott since November 2007, when two unions announced they would pull their conventions from the hotel due to the ongoing labor dispute. CLUE -- whose membership includes some Catholic clergy and laity -- says it has gathered more than 3,000 signatures on petitions advocating for the right of Crowne Plaza workers to decide whether to form a union.

Crowne Plaza employees have been considering unionization through UNITE HERE, a union of needle trades, industrial, textile, hotel and restaurant employees. UNITE HERE officials say many Crowne Plaza employees cannot afford the hotel’s health insurance, which, at $72 a week for family coverage, constitutes 22 percent of the average housekeeper’s salary. Many of the hotel's employees qualify for such government assistance as food stamps, union officials noted.

Since November, CLUE volunteers have reached out to Crowne Plaza customers through phone banks, delegations and community-outreach efforts to inform them of the boycott and of the more than $5 million in public money the group says the hotel has received since 1982 in the form of low-interest loans, tax breaks and grants to create jobs offering wages above the poverty level.

CLUE promises continued picketing, street preaching, worshiping and leafleting, and is asking customers to not eat, sleep or celebrate in the hotel until management agrees to a set of standards that would be used to poll employees on whether to form a union.

Crowne Plaza management, on the other hand, contends that it does not need to agree to such standards because the federal government’s National Labor Relations Board already oversees a secret-ballot process that enables employees to decide whether to join a union.

FULL story at link.