Hilton sets aside $3.5 million per head for exec compensation while increasing employee workload 43%

[Hannah Bell]

The Association of American Law Schools (AALS), comprised of around 300 law schools, scheduled its annual convention of 3,000 delegates at the Hilton, the largest hotel on the West Coast, with 1,908 rooms and three enormously tall towers offering majestic panoramic views of the wondrous San Francisco skyline and bay waters.

Impressive indeed, but progressive law professors throughout the country like Jack Getman were more impressed with the down-to-earth street-level views of hotel workers who have been in difficult contract negotiations with management since August 2009.

According to the union, Hilton is demanding that housekeepers increase their workload substantially, from cleaning 14 rooms a day to 20 rooms. It is also imposing bigger medical costs and freezing pensions.

Because of some hard work, and probably aided by the hotel's rather disturbing publicized stance in negotiations, efforts were successful in convincing the AALS to shift most events away from the union-boycotted hotel.

SALT had already released a September 1 statement urging AALS to support the boycott, pointing out that "the San Francisco Hilton Union Square (Blackstone Group) recently posted its fourth straight quarterly profit and increased the value of its private-equity holdings by 16 percent."

In addition, the hotel union, UNITE-HERE Local 2, reports that the Blackstone Group the world's largest private equity firm, which owns the Hilton chain, announced earlier this year that it had $28 billion available for investment.

By comparison, union spokeswoman Riddhi Mehta explained to me, "the union's contract proposal would cost Blackstone $2.5 million each year of the contract, to cover 850 Hilton Union Square workers and their families."

This total settlement is also less, Mehta emphasized, "than the nearly $3.5 million Blackstone reportedly set aside for each corporate employee in 2010. Clearly, Blackstone has the resources to settle this labor dispute."

http://socialistworker.org/2011/01/12/battle-out-of-the-movies


There's noooooooo money! Noooooo money, I tell you!

[aquart]

1. Stuff the executives, starve the actual workers.

HOW DARE THEY TAKE MONEY FROM THE HOTEL WORKERS TO ENRICH THE EXECUTIVES?

Because we let them.

[xchrom]

2. recommend