Hyatt Fires Housekeepers to Avoid Paying Health Insurance

[Jack_Dawson]

And brings in $8.00/hour "contractors" from GA to save money. Hyatt cites "challenging economic conditions."

Making money off the backs of your most loyal and lowest paid workers...great PR.

I will continue patronizing Starwood.

http://www.boston.com/jobs/news/articles/2009/09/18/hundreds_attend_rally_for_fired_hyatt_housekeepers/

:beer:

[MercutioATC]

1. Actually, Hyatt is just outsourcing housekeeping to save money.

It sucks for the employees, but most hotels are cutting costs due to decreased revenues.

[FarCenter]

3. Obama's friend Penney Pritzker, as well as Thomas J Pritzer, is on the Hyatt Board of Directors

The Pritzker family of Chicago owns Hyatt.

[MercutioATC]

4. Ok, but what does that have to do with the OP?

[FarCenter]

7. Usually these threads encourage you to write emails, etc. to Hyatt

You should write to the Pritzer family members since they control Hyatt.

This is not a nameless, faceless mega-corporation. It is controlled by specific people.

[naaman fletcher]

8. It's important..

Because they point is that no matter what your political sympathies are, in the end most businessmen/women will do crappy things. Lot's of "liberal" big businessmen don't practice what they preach. It is a good argument for national health care. If it was just conservatives that treated their employees like crap, one could make the argument that in the long run they will lose out to liberals who have happy and loyal workers. But, alas, this is mostly not the case.

[bajamary]

9. the Pritzkers could stop this

Well, since Penny & Thomas Pritzker are on the board of directors, and their family is the founder and , I believe, largest stock holder of the Hyatt Hotel chain, they could (and should) stop this action by the clearly greedy MBA-driven corporative execs.

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. Hyatt is still a private company for now

The IPO, as far as I know, hasn't gone through yet.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Hyatt submitted an S-1 registration statement to the SEC in early August

IPO time, with Goldman and JP Morgan in the syndicate. There's little doubt that this Boston situation is a test run for company wide cuts to push up dividends as the company goes public. The question is whether Americans have the ethical balls to refuse this nonsense.

[eomer]

18. Save money how? By not providing healthcare insurance.

Obviously one of the main "advantages" of outsourcing is the ability to not provide various benefits to the workers.

[MercutioATC]

22. Well, that....and paying $8/hr instead of $15/hour...

I have no idea what their housekeeping labor costs were, but they just saved almost 50% in payroll costs alone (not factoring in health care costs).

I'm not supporting the decision, just commenting that they didn't "fire housekeepers to avoid paying health insurance", they did it to cut costs (in an industry that's taking a beating because of the economy).

[indepat]

2. Symptomatic of more and more large corporations getting on more and more peoples shit lists

:P

[SoCalDem]

5. Sadly, just another sign of the times..

People wanted glitzier places to stay, so we have palatial "resorts" & higher prices to go along with them. Big chains have big costs, so they start the cutting with the "least" and work their way up...never to the top, though..


Anyone else remember when a hotel/motel was "special" if it had "chilled air" and tv?
:rofl:

[HCE SuiGeneris]

10. San Diego Resort Offers $19 ‘Survivor’ Rate

http://www.modernmom.com/hot_topics/article/4349

"If you're willing to rough it at the resort, you can pay $19 a night and receive an empty room, with one light bulb in the bathroom. Guests have to bring their own toiletries (including toilet paper) and linens, and do not have access to the air conditioning in the room."

[Selatius]

19. Wow, that's very grim. I wonder if they have been able to fill up their rooms with that deal.

I bet they have boosted their occupancy rates by doing that.

[Greyhound]

20. Remember when Motel 6 was $6 a night?

A clean room, air conditioning/heat, a shower, and a TV, for a price nearly everybody could afford.

[SoCalDem]

24. Yes I do.. and then Super 8 came along...

with a few more amenities..and somehow we now think it's perfectly okay to spend $100 a night (or a lot more)..just because we're "on vacation"..

We spent 10 days, steps away from the beach in Montego Bay, Jamaica back in the early 70's.. Our little villa had only rudimentary A/C, and the power usually went out around 4 pm every day. The place had no restaurant, so we shopped at a little store nearby, and found some inexpensive local restaurants. We usually had fresh fruit from a bicycle-powered fruit cart, for breakfast, and were too busy having a great time to realize that our accommodations were less than 5-star:)

We also had no tv, no phone, no radio..just the basics.

[lib2DaBone]

6. It's a giant race to the bottom...

What do the big corporations and money men think they are going to do when the have collapsed the whole system? No one has money, no one has a job.. no one can purchase their products.

Ya.. this is free market capitalism.. only the playing field is not free market and it is not level.. more like a steep downhill rock-infested ravine we can't climb out of.

[Greyhound]

21. Move to Asia.

Over 2B and a growing standard of living with virtually no regulation.

[bajamary]

13. Penny Pritzker's address

Well folks, the public records on political contributions shows the home address of Penny Pritzker.

This is from The Huffington Post's site of political contributors.
http://fundrace.huffingtonpost.com/neighbors.php?type=name&lname=Pritzker&fname=Penny

She contributed the following, among many other donations:
Updated
Q3/2008
Hillary Clinton $4,600

Penny Pritzker
1875 N ORCHARD ST
Chicago IL 60614


In case you're curious for more information on Penny, here's Penny Pritzker's own website

http://www.penny-pritzker.com/index.html

[FarCenter]

14. President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board

Penny Sue Pritzker - Associations http://www.penny-pritzker.com/penny-pritzker-associations.html

President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board: Ms. Pritzker is one of the seventeen members of PERAB which formulates and evaluates economic policy for the Obama Administration.

[bluethruandthru]

15. Another reason for Single Payer.

No one's health care should be tied to their job!

[ddeclue]

16. We need to organize a nationwide boycott of Hyatt and send them a message

no more of this bullshit and give these people back their jobs!

[AllentownJake]

17. Short Term thinking

The quality of room cleaning will probably go down.

[undeterred]

23. Hey, I know of an insurance company who

decreased housekeeping hours from 40 to 35 so they wouldn't have to provide health insurance benefits. They still expected the same amount of work to get done, of course.