Doug Manchester is not the only thing causing the Hyatt brand trouble these days. As the strike and boycott of Doug Manchester’s Manchester Hyatt continues in San Diego, San Francisco’s Grand Hyatt in Union Square is experiencing the same troubling issue. Grand Hyatt employees belonging to Unite Here! Local 2 are on strike in pursuit of fair wages and benefits from the Hyatt Corporation. Striking workers could be found outside the San Francisco Grand Hyatt Saturday calling for a boycott of this particular Hyatt and those around country.
According to printed materials being passed out by picketers, the Hyatt Corporation had profits in the range of $1.3 billion within the last five years, with the CEO being paid $6.7 million last year. Recognizing assumed bias in these numbers, the strong cash stockpile and low debt the company holds, in conjunction with the strong IPO last week, shows that despite rough economic times, the Hyatt Hotel Corporation is fairing alright compared to others in the lodging industry. However, Hyatt has reported losses in the last three quarters of 2009. This may weaken striking workers ability to push for “a fair deal” this year, when the uncertain economic future still looms. Local 2 says, “They don’t need to take away affordable family healthcare from working people in order to ensure the ‘health’ of the company.”
A more troubling aspect of the relationship between labor and the Hyatt Corporation can be seen at a Hyatt property in Boston and what is being called the “HYATT 100.” It has been reported that 98 housekeepers at the Boston property were fired and replaced by contracted workers supplied by Hospitality Staffing Solutions. A large portion of these 98 employees had been working for Hyatt for numerous years, earning $15 an hour. The replacement contractors are working for $8 an hour as “temporary” workers. Hyatt Hotels is not the first company to commit such an act, and it certainly will not be the last. However, one must ask whether he or she will support such acts with their travel dollars, because everyone will end up footing the bill through tax dollars.
Ellen Ruppel Shell, a professor at Boston University and author of “Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture” discusses the “HYATT 100″ in her piece, “The Race to the Bottom.” She explains that cutting costs through labor wages and benefits eventually hit taxpayers through social programs and services these workers will need to begin relying on to fill the gap. 
Although it is not necessarily the duty of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation to ensure social stability through their business practices, something must be done to protect dedicated workers from hungry executives at the top. The bust on Wall Street in 2008 seems to have shed some light on this idea of overpaid and irresponsible executive rule in the business world and it continues to worm its way through all industries, not just banking and insurance. As the country debates health care reform, it should be added that these 98 fired employees and their 98 contracted replacements will probably all have to seek government health care assistance.
In the end, not everyone can be an executive. Not everyone wants to be an executive. A hard day’s work cleaning hotel rooms, washing dishes or carrying luggage must not be discounted. The dignity and respect for a hard working employee is something that should be supported by corporations and consumers alike. Some of us start our careers working at the front desks of hotels and move on to a cubicle. Some of us, whether it be due to life circumstance or ability, continue a work path cleaning hotel rooms or serving at a restaurant. These employees deserve a fair deal as it is their sweat that makes a trip to a Hyatt Hotel a luxurious stay.
Support workers’ rights to a fair deal from the Hyatt Hotel Corporation. Boycott Hyatt Hotels. Doug Manchester, owner of the San Diegos’ Grand Manchester Hyatt, supported inequality for gay and lesbians in 2008 through his $125,000 donation supporting Prop 8. A Boston Hyatt unfairly removed almost 100 employees to replace them with labor at almost 50% the cost. How much more is the Hyatt going to do to hurt the lives of Americans?
For more information about Unite Here! go to www.UniteHere.org.
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