About 200 union and hospitality workers were arrested yesterday afternoon in Chicago as they demonstrated their support for 98 workers who lost their jobs in Boston-area Hyatt Hotels, the Chicago Tribune reported in a story.
According to the Tribune, about 900 members of Unite Here Local 1, the union that represents hospitality workers in and around Chicago, participated in the demonstration; those arrested sat in the middle of a street as an act of civil disobedience.
Also yesterday, a fired housekeeper from the Hyatt Harborside Hotel in Boston appealed to Hyatt Hotels director Penny Pritzker yesterday at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers to reverse Hyatt’s termination of nearly 100 housekeepers at three Boston-area Hyatt hotels, Unite Here Local 1 said.
In a press release, Unite Here Local 1 identified the housekeeper as Angela Norena.
"Norena was joined by union housekeepers in a delegation of 20 women from a number of Chicago hotels in calling on Pritzker to rehire the Boston group," the union said in its release. "Pritzker refused to listen to Norena’s concerns."
The Chicago protest stemmed from the events of Aug. 31, when the three Boston area Hyatt hotels - Hyatt Harborside, Hyatt Regency Boston, and Hyatt Regency Cambridge -- fired its 98 staff housekeepers, some of whom had been on staff for more than 20 years and made more than $15 an hour; they were replaced them with $8-an-hour subcontracted workers from an Atlanta cleaning firm.
Some of the staff housekeepers said they had been asked to train these outsourced employees over the past few years and were assured the new workers would not be replacing them. The cleaning company and the Hyatt deny these claims.
The Hyatt's move has sparked a public outcry against the hotel company, with businesses canceling conventions at the Boston Hyatts and Governor Deval L. Patrick calling for state employees to boycott the hotels unless the company rehires the staff housekeepers.
The Boston Taxi Drivers Association has also threatened to boycott the Hyatt and refuse service to the chain’s Boston locations unless the housekeepers are rehired.
Amid the public pressure, the Hyatt agreed to extend the health benefits of the fired workers and to help each one find a new job but so far has been unwilling to reverse its decision, which it says it made due to challenging economic conditions.
http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2009/09/hyatt_protests.html