Housekeepers Laid Off From Hyatt Want Jobs Back; Few Accept Offer From Hotel For Re-training And Job Search Services

BOSTON/Downtown Crossing - Lucine Williams wants her old job back. “If I was given back my job [I would go back to work for Hyatt ] that’s why we’re all standing out here.” “Out here” is next to a makeshift stage erected by members of UNITE HERE Local 26 in front of the Boston Hyatt Regency Hotel on a chilly evening earlier this month. “May the eyes of the Hyatt management be opened and may their hearts be softened ” intoned Rabbi Barbara Pensner of Temple Hillel B’nai Torah in West Roxbury. “May they recognize they’ve made an error in judgment. May they repent the cruelty and immorality of their acts and may they open their doors to welcome these women [and men] back into their jobs again.” Several hundred people - including a dozen of the nearly 100 housekeepers laid off at the end of August by the Hyatt Hotels in Boston and Cambridge – listened to speeches by religious leaders from Boston area churches mosques and synagogues. The interfaith rally was called to protest the treatment of the housekeepers who accuse the Hotel chain of forcing them to train replacement workers just prior to being told they would lose their jobs. Reverend Terry Burke Minister of the First Church Unitarian Universalist in Jamaica Plain said he was amazed that a hotel chain so dependent upon its public reputation would risk its standing by dismissing workers under such circumstances. “You would think they would care about the people doing this quality work they’ve done for years. I think they [Hyatt] feel given the economic climate they can do anything.” Spokespersons for the Hotel say the depressed economy forced the company to hire contract housekeepers at vastly reduced wages and benefits but deny making the former workers train their low wage replacements. Minister Don Muhammad of Mosque 11 in the South End invoked solidarity in his speech to the crowd: “You know they’ll talk a lot about outsourcing. Well you can’t outsource a waitress you can’t outsource a bartender…why don’t you take those that have come to this nation all colors all hues all races and see the value of the rainbow; cause god didn’t make no junk. And from what I have heard of these hotel workers you are fine workers and you are not going to stand alone…we stand as one and we win as one.” Lucine Williams was laid off a month before what would have been her 22nd anniversary working as a housekeeper for the Hyatt located at One Avenue de Lafayette in the Downtown Crossing shopping area. She says making financial ends meet has been especially hard during the holiday season. “I’ve got a 14 year old son ” she notes “and coming on to the holidays the kid looks for presents and stuff and most likely he’ll be disappointed this time of year because I don’t have any money to buy him anything...” Luz Aquino worked at the Hyatt Harborside at Logan Airport for eight years. Speaking with help from a translator during the demonstration she agreed that if the union sponsored "Hotel Workers Rising" campaign succeeded in convincing Hyatt to rehire the housekeepers she would accept her job back immediately. “The objective of this struggle is for all of us to get our jobs back because our jobs still exist. And that is all we want for the Hyatt 100.” MA Governor Deval Patrick – who met with housekeepers at the UNITE-HERE Local 26 office in Boston’s Chinatown in September - also wants Hyatt to rehire the housekeepers and has threatened a boycott of the hotel chain. In a letter to CEO Mark Hoplamazian dated September 22nd and following a phone conversation between the two Patrick writes “You tell me there are sound financial reasons for the company’s decision and I accept that. But the manner in which these workers were discharged is so inconsistent with both the expressed values of the Hyatt organization and basic fairness that I do not believe any other remedy than full reinstatement is adequate.” Hyatt has made no public statements indicating the company is considering taking back the laid off workers. In his letter to Hoplamazian Patrick asks the company to reconsider its decision to replace the housekeepers and says “barring that I will direct all state employees not to use Hyatt when traveling or for other purposes for the foreseeable future. "This is not how I like to operate. But the treatment of these workers appears to be so substandard that it leaves me no choice ” emphasizes Patrick in the letter. So far a boycott is just a threat and not a state-sponsored directive. According to Press Secretary Alex Goldstein there have been “no new updates relative to Hyatt” since the Governor sent his letter. The UNITE HERE union also has called for a boycott of Hyatt Hotels nationwide. Protest actions in support of the laid off Boston workers known as the “Hyatt 100 ” have occurred in Los Angeles San Francisco Indianapolis Vancouver Canada Chicago (Hyatt’s headquarters) and as far away as Waikiki Hawaii. Measuring the efficacy of the boycott against the hotels in Boston and Cambridge has been difficult. Open Media Boston has been unable to confirm reports that at least one high school canceled plans to hold its next prom at the Hyatt. Multiple phone messages left at UNITE HERE Local 26 have gone unreturned. But following the rally on November 11 Local 26 President Janice Loux said the union’s next step is to “escalate” the boycott. In the spotlight of public criticism and three days after Governor Patrick threatened state action against the hotels Hyatt announced it would offer all the housekeepers “new full-time positions in the Boston market ” according to a September 25th hotel press release. Only a handful of the 98 former hotel employees have responded to Hyatt’s offer. The new jobs are with the janitorial and housekeeping branch of the Chicago-based contractor United Service Companies. Through phone calls and letters Hyatt has told the laid off workers that United Service would pay the same hourly rate they were making at the Hyatt through December 31 2010 if they accepted jobs with the contractor. Hyatt also agreed to continue paying for health insurance coverage (at no cost to the workers according to Hyatt) through March 10 2010 whether or not they choose to work for United Service. A second option for the workers according to Hyatt includes “career services and retraining opportunities” with Manpower and Right Management Inc. based in Philadelphia. Under this scenario the Hyatt employees are to be paid their former hourly rate only through March 31st of next year. The former employees have until December 31st to choose one or the other of the two options. Attempts to contact representatives of United Service Companies and Manpower and Right Management have proved unsuccessful so far. United Service did not return several calls and a staff person at Manpower referred all reporter’s questions to Hyatt. A Hyatt spokesperson declined to record an audio interview with I.B.I.S. Radio and Open Media Boston. But following an email inquiry to the hotel’s public relations office asking how many of the former employees had agreed to either of the two offers spokesperson Amy Patty sent Open Media Boston a copy of a Reuters article from November 16th. The story’s lead begins: “Just six of the 98 Boston Housekeepers sacked by Hyatt Hotels Corp. in August have taken up the offer of alternative employment and few have responded to overtures by phone or mail a Hyatt Manager said.” Six of the former Hyatt housekeepers now work for United Services and 16 others have found employment elsewhere according to the article. Hyatt Regency Boston General Manager Philip Stamm described the response as “disheartening” and told Reuters “We’re under the impression that they’ve been misinformed…they’re just rejecting these offers without having an opportunity to evaluate them.” Aside from lingering anger over their dismissals some of the former Hyatt employees say they are having difficulty trusting the company. Several workers reported being told by their doctors that children covered under medical insurance while working for Hyatt were now dropped from health plans under the current Hyatt deal. In a recent letter to the Boston Globe responding to an opinion column critical of the hotel Hyatt Senior VP for Field Operations Jerry Lewin said the situation was the result of a mistake. “Our insurance provider has confirmed that a total of four claims were incorrectly denied due to an administrative error it made. The errors have been corrected and the claims will be covered.” In an email exchange Hyatt's Amy Patty told Open Media Boston that the hotel continues to encourage “anyone with questions or who has been told about any change in coverage by their medical professional to reach out to us directly.” Other mistakes by the hotel may have hindered some of the workers in efforts to make informed decisions. In a November 10th letter to the laid off housekeepers the document lists an incorrect phone number for United Service Companies. When a reporter tried calling a recorded voice responded that the number was an unassigned administrative number at Northeastern University. A Hyatt spokesperson said a revised letter and apology had been sent out to its former employees after Open Media Boston pointed out the problem. Lucine Williams Luz Aquino and other laid off housekeepers say they don’t want what they call “temporary” work. “Hyatt sent in the mail today another letter asking us to take the temp jobs they are offering us. We don’t want that from Hyatt ” said Williams at the November 11th rally in front of the hotel. “Because I think that is really unfair. Because we’re going to do to the other people the same thing Hyatt is doing to us.” Hyatt management denies the jobs and career services are temporary; although there is no question that the hotel’s deal with United Services and Manpower and Right Management ends December and March of next year respectively. Workers and their union supporters are interpreting this to mean that if the workers can’t find jobs before the deals end they are on their own. Hyatt’s Phillip Stamm called the hotel’s offer “’very generous’ given the bleak economic backdrop ” according to the Reuters article. Union activists and the housekeepers counter that the bleak economy has not effected Hyatt management; especially those at the top of the corporation who are benefitting from the company’s recent Initial Public Offering. According to Bloomberg News and other sources in the business press Hyatt earned $1.09 Billion on the sale of 44 Million shares of stock earlier this month. Many members of the Pritzker family - founders and principal owners of the Hyatt Hotels - are considered billionaires. The company is valued as the third largest hotel chain in America. Hyatt Board of Directors Chair Penny Pritzker also serves as an economic advisor to President Obama. In February she joined the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board charged with studying the current economic crisis and devising responses to it. Her husband Dr. Brian Traubert serves as a member of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. Laid off workers say Pritzker and other members of the Hyatt family should consider their own financial gains before taking such harsh measures as layoffs of the workers least able to absorb the consequences of the economic downturn. OMB Audio: Speeches from the Nov. 11 2009 Interfaith Rally featuring Rabbi Barbara Pensner Minister Don Muhammad Reverend Ellen Frith UNITE HERE Local 26 President Janice Loux former Hyatt employees Lucine Williams and Luz Aquino (with translation by Alma Soto) the Greater Love Tabernacle Choir and Reverend Terry Burke. Web Resources: http://www.hotelworkersrising.org http://www.unitehere.org http://regencyboston.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp Bookmark/Search this post with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Newsvine Facebook Google Yahoo Technorati