USA: Support locked-out San Francisco hotel workers

USA: Support locked-out San Francisco hotel workers
Over 4,000 hotel workers are locked out of 14 downtown San Francisco hotels. The hotel companies have put a contract proposal on the table with miniscule pay increases and which would require hotel workers to make copays that would put health benefits out of reach for most workers. The workers are on picket lines 24 hours a day and fighting back, but they need your support.

On September 29th, Workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 2 went on strike in four downtown San Francisco hotels. The workers were seeking a measured step to move the hotel companies forward in negotiations that had been badly stalled. UNITE HERE Local 2 announced at the time of the strike that they would return to work after two weeks. The hotel employers in San Francisco responded by locking workers out in ten additional hotels. Later they announced that the lockout would last indefinitely.

Workers in San Francisco are seeking a contract that maintains their benefits, includes reasonable wage increases and a contract which expires in 2006 along with many other major hotel cities in North America. The companies have responded by proposing miniscule wage increases and benefit takeaways over the course of a 5-year contract. Hotel workers in Washington DC and Los Angeles, CA are locked in similar struggles with their employers.

Please support Hotel Workers in San Francisco and elsewhere by sending the message provided at the site below (or a message of your own) to the Hotel CEOs.

USA: Support locked-out San Francisco hotel workers

AAAUnite: October 2004

So I've been busy. No, seriously. Busy. And here is just one of many major issues that have been occupying my time and mind.

Take a moment to learn about the Lockout against hotel workers from the Multi-Employer Group, that includes the Hilton and other luxury, multibillion dollar hotels that are still trying screw the workers that run their facilities out of basic health care and a living wage, among other things.

The American Anthropological Association had planned to hold it's annual conference at the SF Hilton, but due to pressure from its members, who refuse to cross picket lines in order to give papers on the capitalist power, exploitation and the plight of marginalized people, from the comforts of a cushy hotel that locks out its own workers. The "compromise" decision to move the conference to a later date at the non-union Atlanta Hilton has also been met with anger, shock and collective action by disgruntled members of AAA who are unwilling to take that long walk around the picket line in a state that doesn't even support collective bargaining rights for workers. Plans to boycott or otherwise not attend the Atlanta conference, and find ways to coordinate meetings of our own here in the Bay Area are in progress.

For more information, check out the AAAUNITE site here:
AAAUnite: October 2004