SAN FRANCISCO
Workers force end to hotel lockout
By Brenda Sandburg
San Francisco
The timing was perfect.
As hundreds of people gathered at a rally in solidarity with
San Francisco's locked-out hotel workers, union officials got
the hotel bosses to end the 38-day lockout and accept a 60-day
cooling-off period.
Tho Do, secretary-treasurer of UNITE HERE Local 2, the union
representing the hotel workers, announced the victory at a Nov.
20 rally called by the Million Worker March Committee.
"Last night we went into negotiations and because of your
support the company began to show signs of ending the lockout,"
Do said. "Our workers will return to work in the next couple of
days."
Do introduced Vedrange Colas, who has worked at the Westin
St. Francis Hotel for 16 years. "Thank you for your support,"
she told the cheering crowd. "We have to get what we need."
The struggle began Sept. 29 when workers at four hotels went
on a two-week strike to force employers to negotiate a
favorable contract. The hotel operators retaliated on Oct. 13,
locking out the striking workers as well as those at 10 other
hotels.
Since then the 4,300 locked-out workers have held loud
picket lines at the hotels, chanting from early in the morning
into the evening. They have had strong support from other
unions and the community, as well as from Mayor Gavin Newsom,
who joined the picket line in October when hotel owners refused
his request for a 90-day cooling off period.
Two other developments had bolstered the workers. The state
of California gave them unemployment compensation, and the
three organizations providing their health-care benefits
extended coverage through January.
Many businesses and organizations have refused to cross the
picket line. According to a Local 2 representative, more than
90 groups cancelled meetings at the 14 hotels, costing the
owners millions of dollars.
"The members of Local 2 are heroic," Clarence Thomas, a
leader of Inter national Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10
and co-chair of the Million Worker March Committee, told the
crowd. "They deserve health care. They deserve pensions. They
also deserve equal opportunity."
And they need to have a contract that is in sync with those
of hotel workers in other cities, Thomas said. "None of this
piecemeal two years here, four years there. Local 2 is trying
to stop the union from being busted."
'Time to stand up'
The length of the contract is a key point in the
negotiations.
The union is pushing for a two-year contract that would
expire at the same time as contracts in Boston, New York and
other major cities, thus giving hotel workers more bargaining
power. The hotel bosses want a five-year contract.
Local 2 is also fighting to reduce work loads, raise wages
and protect health and pension benefits. The owners want
workers to pay hundreds of dollars more per month for
health-care coverage.
Trent Willis, newly elected president of ILWU Local 10 and
co-chair of the MWM Committee, said workers around the country
are in similar struggles. The employers "have taken the posture
to lower our wages, take away our health care," Willis
said.
"No matter what color, nationality, whatever part of the
country or whatever other country you're from, it's time to
stand up and say we've had enough."
Representatives from several other unions expressed
solidarity with the hotel workers. Keith Shanklin, a member of
ILWU Local 34 and secretary-treasurer of the Million Worker
March Committee, announced that his local had given $10,000,
plus thousands of dollars' worth of coupons, to the hotel
workers. Walter Johnson, former secretary-treasurer of the San
Francisco Labor Council, called for a million worker march to
be held in San Francisco if the hotel workers don't get the
contract they want.
Other speakers included a member of Service Employees Local
790, who expres sed solidarity on behalf of Bay Area Rapid
Transit workers, and Eddie Rosario, vice president of Graphic
Communications International Union Local 4N.
Shane Hoff, a member of United Trans portation Union Local
1741, said her union's school bus drivers had joined the picket
lines three times. Each time, 10 to 20 members drove up in a
school bus and disembarked into the picket line.
"We need to build a national fighting movement," Hoff said.
"We need to take the offense and build the Million Worker March
movement."
Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Menchu also sent a statement
of solidarity. Menchu was scheduled to speak that day at a
meeting of the American Anthro pological Association, which
moved its meeting from the San Francisco Hilton to Atlanta in
solidarity with the locked-out workers.
After a rally at Union Square, the center of San Francisco's
shopping district, protesters marched to four of the hotels
that had locked out workers: the Four Seasons, Sheraton Palace,
Hyatt Regency and the Argent. At the Hyatt people surrounded
the hotel in single file. A band joined the march, adding to
the jubilant mood.
Local 2 President Mike Casey arrived at the closing rally to
offer his gratitude to the Million Worker March Committee for
its solidarity.
"We will remember this day because this is the day the
Million Worker March rallied and marched for us and this is the
day the lockout ended," Casey said.
Reprinted from the Dec. 2, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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