Union protests Hyatt hotels
(Crain's) — Aiming to ratchet up the pressure on Hyatt Hotels Corp. and gain an edge in labor contract talks, union activists had planned protests Thursday at Hyatt hotels in 15 North American cities, including Chicago.
About 200 demonstrators plan to provoke police with a civil disobedience action Thursday afternoon in front of the Hyatt Regency Chicago, according to Unite Here Local 1, which represents about 6,500 downtown hotel employees who have been working without a labor contract since last August.
Over the past year, Chicago-based Hyatt has become a favorite target of Unite Here, which gripes that the company is "taking unfair advantage" of the depressed hotel market to push for stingy labor contracts covering its hotels. Unite Here also contends Hyatt is thwarting its efforts to recruit workers at non-union Hyatt hotels in cities such as Indianapolis and San Antonio.
Police arrested about 200 protesters in a union-led demonstration outside the Park Hyatt Chicago last September, and the union staged a major protest outside Hyatt's annual shareholders meeting in Chicago in June.
Nearly 1,000 union activists will participate in the civil disobedience campaign Thursday at 15 cities across the continent, including San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Miami and Boston.
"In contrast to the respect we are showing for the negotiation process, union leadership has chosen to stage demonstrations rather than come to the bargaining table to find solutions to issues important to our associates and our business," Hyatt says in a statement.
The company also says the Hyatt Regency Chicago "is a good place to work," noting that it has a low employee turnover rate and its combined pay and benefits for entry-level employees far exceed that of new retail jobs in the Chicago area.
A union spokeswoman says "there's been no progress" in labor contract talks with Hyatt in Chicago. Contracts covering workers at downtown hotels run by Hyatt and other chains expired Aug. 31.
The protest in front of the Hyatt Regency will run from 4:30 to 6 p.m., according to the union. The hotel at 151 E. Wacker Drive is the largest in the Chicago area, with 2,019 rooms.
