News/Press

• Hub hotels, union reach accord after year of talks
  4.25.2007 -- The Boston Globe
  
  More than a year after negotiations began, four Boston hotels managed by New York-based Starwood Hotels yesterday reached an agreement with the labor union representing about 5,000 hotel workers in the Boston area.
  
  While the proposed 6 1/4-year contract covers wage and benefit increases only for the Sheraton Boston, the Park Plaza, and two Westin hotels in the city, it is expected to set the stage for new pacts at 15 other unionized hotels, including the Colonnade, the Parker House, and the Ritz-Carlton, that signed so-called me too agreements last fall committing them to abide by the contract terms negotiated by the Sheraton Boston. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Hub hotel union signs pact, with trimmings
  4.25.2007 -- The Boston Herald
  
  After months of protests and tense negotiations, the city's largest hotel union and Starwood Hotels yesterday reached a new contract agreement that averts a citywide strike - and guarantees workers free Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys.
  
  "It's a great historic victory," said Janice Loux, president of Unite Here Local 26, of the tentative agreement that ultimately applies to 19 city hotels with more than 5,000 workers.
  
  Workers got pay increases, a new defined-pension plan, and a reduction in the number of rooms housekeeping staff have to clean each day, Loux said. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Hotel workers stage sit-ins at restaurants
  4.17.2007 -- The Boston Herald
  
  Hotel union workers "occupied" three restaurants in city hotels yesterday, distrupting lunchtime crowds and chanting, "No contract, no peace!" [Full Story]
  
  
  
• 'Battle of the Beds' takes to Back Bay street
  3.28.2007 -- The Boston Herald
  
  Hundreds of hotel workers yesterday rallied outside the Sheraton Boston, diverting traffic while threatening to go on strike against four major city hotels unless a new contract is signed soon.
  
  "We're never going away and we're never giving up!" shouted Janice Loux, head of Unite Here Local 26, to a sea of protesters carrying red union signs. The rally partially blocked Dalton Street, but remained peaceful as police diverted traffic around the crowd. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Union moves Hillary
  3.23.2007 -- The Boston Herald
  
  We hear presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton has moved her big-money Massachusetts fundraiser on March 30 from the Boston Park Plaza Hotel to the State Room.
  
  HRC's campaign spokesman Blake Zeff reports "out of respect for Local 26" of hotel workers union - which last week authorized a strike vote against Starwood Hotels, the owner of the Park Plaza - the event venue was changed. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Jewish groups sign pledge to remain behind the picket line
  3.22.2007 -- The Jewish Advocate
  
  If Boston's hotel workers decide to strike next month, local Jewish organizations are vowing to stand behind them by canceling their multi-thousand dollar events being held at the upscale venues.
  
  Earlier this month, officials at the Rashi School, a Reform Jewish day school in Newton, and Jewish Funds for Justice, a national organization that fights poverty, signed a pledge created by the New England Jewish Labor Committee (JLC) that promises to stay behind the picket line if hotel employees in the area strike. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Four-star hotel discord
  3.15.2007 -- Boston Globe
  
  Maria Semedo is a housekeeper at the Sheraton Boston Hotel, where rooms routinely go for more than $150 a night.
  
  Semedo, 42, has worked at the hotel since 1988, shortly after she moved to Boston from Cape Verde. Over the years, she said yesterday, cleaning 16 rooms a day has taken a physical toll.
  
  "I have a pain in my back," she said. "In July 2005, I fell and hurt my head and leg, and my leg is still numb. So, I feel like, when I am 50, I won't be able to work anymore, because I have a bad back." Semedo was one of hundreds of hotel workers streaming into their union headquarters on Harrison Avenue yesterday. They were voting on whether to authorize a strike against Starwood Hotels and Resorts, owners of four major Boston hotels, and the results announced last evening were overwhelming in favor of a strike, with 1,013 members in favor and only 27 opposed. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Hotel employees to take strike vote
  3.14.2007 -- Boston Globe
  
  Employees at four Boston hotels are set to vote tomorrow on whether to authorize a strike.
  
  Members of Unite Here Local 26 who work at the Boston Park Plaza, Sheraton Boston, Westin Copley Place, and Westin Waterfront will be casting secret ballots at the union's Chinatown headquarters between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. The local will also be setting up booths to dispense information about how members can receive food and mortgage assistance, as well as other social services, if they vote to strike. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• African-Americans need apply
  12.11.2006 -- Boston Globe
  
  THE NUMBER of African-American hotel workers across the United States appears to be falling at the same time that foreign-born hospitality workers are rising into the middle class. The disappearing African-American hotel worker is just one of many problems that perpetuates an urban underclass. But it is a problem, at least, that a fast-growing, private sector union wants to tackle.
  
  John Wilhelm, president of Unite Here, which represents roughly 200,000 unionized hotel workers across the United States, says that new immigrant populations, including black workers from the Caribbean, have been replacing African-Americans in hotel service jobs for about a decade. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Hub Hotels, Workers Have "Battle of the Beds"
  11.21.2006 -- Boston Herald
  
  Unite Here Local 26 - which represents 5,000 Boston workers whose contracts with 19 hotels in the city expire at the end of the month - is demanding a wide range of concessions from Starwoods Hotels, which is effectively negotiating a new citywide contract on behalf of the city's major hotels.
  
  Starwoods manages four hotels in Boston: Sheraton Boston, Westin Copley, Park Plaza and Westin Waterfront. Under a "me too" agreement, other major city hotels will abide by what Starwood negotiates. [Full Story]

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