Workers protest Hyatt hotels across the country

 

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Eric

It’s not often that you hear “Honolulu” and “protest” in the same sentence. Buttoday in Honolulu, hotel workers and supportive members of the community pulled up beds outside the Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort to protest work conditions and low pay. Workers joined members of their union, Unite Here, across the country to fight Hyatt’s tactics of hiring low-paid temporary workers to replace union workers and forcing the remaining workers to do twice the work.

In Boston, Hyatt workers protested against the firing of the “Hyatt 100″, a hundred members of staff who were in many cases unwittingly trained their much lower-paid replacements, having been told that they were training temporary workers who would fill in when staff went on “vacation.” Little did they know that they were the ones going on a permanent vacation.

In Chicago, Hyatt actually turned up the heat lamps outside the hotel – in 95 degree weather, mind you – to sweat out the picketing workers. It only served to make them even angrier. The workers extended the picket line beyond the reach of the heat lamps to avoid totally dehydrating in the sweltering summer heat.

When you hear the amount of work that these workers do, it’s almost impossible to believe that Hyatt wants to cut pay nearly in half and add to their workload. Listen to these housekeepers tell their story