MARKETPLACE (Minnesota Public Radio), February 15, 2005, Wednesday

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http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/02/15/PM200602156.html


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MARKETPLACE

SHOW: Marketplace 6:30 AM EST SYND

February 15, 2006 Wednesday

HEADLINE: Breakaway union from AFL-CIO launches campaign to turn low-wage hotel work into middle-class jobs

ANCHORS: KAI RYSSDAL

REPORTERS: HILLARY WICAI

BODY:
KAI RYSSDAL, anchor:
This is MARKETPLACE from American Public Media. I'm Kai Ryssdal.
Last summer, the AFL-CIO split in two. Breakaway unions said the venerable labor federation, this country's biggest, wasn't paying enough attention to organizing workers. They called themselves the `change-to-win' coalition. Today, they announced the first big test of their strategy and that slogan. They launched a campaign to turn low-wage hotel work into middle-class jobs. MARKETPLACE's Hillary Wicai reports the coalition has been laying the foundation for this push for quite a while.
HILLARY WICAI reporting:
The unions of change-to-win including the teamsters and the service workers are supporting their federation partner Unite Here. That union represents some 60,000 workers at about 400 hotels, whose contracts are already expired or are set to expire this year. They've watched as the hotel chains like Marriott, Hilton, Starwood and Intercontinental have grown and gone global. The union has been working for about five years to get the expiration dates to coincide. It gives workers more bargaining power when negotiating. A company hurts more if dozens of its hotel staffs are taking job actions vs. just one. Unite Here vice president John Wilhelm says they have the leverage to do this.
Mr. JOHN WILHELM: They can't move our jobs overseas which is an enormous opportunity.
WICAI: Kate Bronson Brenner is director of Labor Education Research at Cornell University. She says this contract campaign is winnable.
Ms. KATE BRONSON BRENNER [misspelled]: This is an industry where the workers are ripe for organizing. There are a lot of nonunion hotels. Every contract victory sets the stage for unorganized workers in the industry to be organized.
WICAI: But don't expect the hotel industry to roll over and start dishing out middle-class wages. Joseph McInerney of the American Hotel and Lodging Association says Unite Here is mistaken to try and nationalize this issue.
Mr. JOSEPH McINERNEY: It should be a very local issue because wages, pensions and health care are all local issues, and we should negotiate on a local basis like we have throughout the years.
WICAI: The campaign called `Hotel Workers Rising' starts this evening in San Francisco and has rallies planned later this week in LA, Chicago and Boston. I'm Hillary Wicai for MARKETPLACE.