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• Hotel Union Forges New Partnerships 1/27/2007. Providence Business News
  In Rhode Island, only 25 percent of workers in the hotel industry are unionized. In Boston, it’s more like 50 percent. But things are looking up from the perspective of UNITE HERE! Local 217.

  During the past three years, the union has progressed in its efforts to form partnerships with developers of hotels early in the planning and zoning approval process. Doing so has led hotel operators such as Denver-based Sage Hospitality Resources to sign a legally binding “labor peace agreement” with Local 217.

• LAX Hotel Workers To Begin Fast For A Living Wage 12/6/2006
  500 to Participate in Opening Candlelight Vigil on Century Boulevard; Rev. Cecil Murray, Bishop Gabino Zavala to Lead Blessing of ...

• Make room for negotiation 11/21/2006. Boston Globe
  BOSTON HOTEL workers should share the benefits from the sharp increase in the number of hotel beds downtown and along the waterfront. The outcome of current contract negotiations between Hotel Workers Union Local 26 and hotel managers will set the tone for future labor relations in the hospitality industry as Boston seeks its place in the top tier of convention destinations.

• Tough road to Quail Lodge contract 11/18/2006. Monterey County Herald
  When federal mediator David Weinberg meets with Quail Lodge management and bargaining representatives from the local hotel workers' union later this month, he's got his work cut out for him.

  The 97-guest-room Carmel Valley resort, seeking to streamline operations to increase profits to its Hong Kong-based owner, is calling for increased housekeeping workloads. Unite Here Local 483, representing 150 of the property's workers, says those changes place members at undue risk of workplace injuries and wants a succession clause added to guarantee jobs should the hotel change ownership

UNITE HERE represents about 100,000 workers in hotels like Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt across the U.S. and Canada . Ownership in the hotel industry is concentrated in the hands of a few national and international companies, making it important for hotel workers across the U.S. and Canada to concentrate, too. To this end, hotel workers in New York, Chicago, Boston, Toronto and Honolulu, among other cities, all negotiated contracts that expire in 2006 so that they can stand together against large corporations.

Contracts that cover nearly 16,000 workers are expiring this year in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. In addition to working together to win wage increases and other improvements, one of our central goals is winning a two-year term so that these workers can join the over 40,000 hotel workers who will be negotiating together in 2006.

By uniting hotel workers across North America, we will be able to take on many of the issues that matter most to us—winning affordable health care, respecting immigrant workers’ rights and hiring African American workers. The specifics of wages and other benefits will continue to be hammered out locally.

Many hotel companies are growing through new construction, so we’re challenging companies to respect workers’ rights by agreeing to a card-check recognition process. Since 1997, 12,000 new hotel workers have joined our ranks. And since 2002, we’ve won agreements in 15 future hotel projects that will employ about 5,000 workers. Some recent victories include right-to-organize agreements for an 800-room Hilton in Baltimore, Md.; a 1,000-room Hyatt in Denver, Colo. and an 800-room Hilton in Osceola County, Fla.

With about one million hotel workers in the U.S. and Canada, we’ve got a lot of organizing to do. Hotel workers make strangers welcome and comfortable. Their hard should be rewarded with decent pay and benefits, with enough to provide their own children with a bright future. That’s what belonging to UNITE HERE is all about.