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For more information, and to join in Unite Here's fight for the rights of hotel workers, contact Anne Scheetz annescheetz@gmail.com.

At two November 16, 2011, meetings, Unite Here Local 1 leaders vowed to fight back against Hyatt Hotels Corporation's demand that Chicago workers sign a substandard contract or lose their health insurance as of January 1, 2012. Speaker after speaker emphasized that this fight involves all hospitality industry workers, and that all must and will stand together.

Under the single-payer health program we fight for, access to health care would not be tied to employment, and such threats, described by some workers as "cowardly," would be impossible.

According to Local 1 officials, the contract offered by Hyatt is worse than contracts at other hotels in the city in five areas: subcontracting protection; bringing work back into the union (public areas, night cleaning, kitchen work); protection against layoffs; double time on the 7th consecutive work day; housekeeping workload protection, and the right for housekeepers to stay in their sections. Should this contract go through, over 4,000 workers at other Chicago hotels would be at risk for worse contracts in the future.

The union contends that Hyatt is an industry leader in two areas that threaten workers livelihoods and health: subcontracting, and workload speed-up.

Testimony from Hyatt workers employed through temp agencies in cities where the hotels are not yet unionized speaks to such abuses as wage theft, complete lack of benefits, excessive workloads, lack of time off (multiple shifts seven days a week), refusals by managers to allow sick workers to leave, and employment of children as young as thirteen. The lack of time off not only threatens workers' health, but makes family life impossible, they note.

Chicago workers, even at unionized hotels, face layoffs during the winter during which they lose their health insurance, and injurious workloads. A study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine 53:116-125 in 2010 documented double the rate of injuries among housekeepers in the worst versus the best hotel chains, and higher rates among women and Hispanic workers.

The ISPC Chicago Group and the Illinois chapter of PNHP have joined Unite Here picket lines during a recent strike; and written letters to Hyatt medical sector customers urging them to move conferences out of Hyatt hotels.

While standing with Unite Here in their struggle, single-payer activists educate workers about the benefit to labor of a single-payer health program with the slogan "Health care is a human right! Unions should not have to bargain over health care."

Further information on the hotel workers' struggle is available on the Unite Here website.