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Richard Trumka at the Hilton Boycott
Boy, Trumka’s sure bringing some fire back to the labor movement.
Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, got himself arrested along with dozens of workers boycotting the Hilton San Francisco. The union hotel employees of UNITE HERE Local 2 have had a series of walkouts, boycotts, and rolling strikes since their contract expired in August. Today Trumka traveled to the Hilton for a huge rally and boycott, and engaged in civil disobedience with the workers. From the SF Chronicle:
Unionized hotel workers began a boycott of the Hilton San Francisco Tuesday with an 800-person march and a 160-person sit-in blocking the hotel lobby, which resulted in dozens of arrests, including AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.
Members of the hotel workers union Local 2 have staged a series of walkouts and boycotts since their contract expired in August. The union has sought to retain health care coverage with low co-payments, while management has insisted that the San Francisco workers pay more of the ever-rising costs.
Management representatives have said the boycotts and disruptions hurt San Francisco’s tourist industry. Union officials say profitable corporate hotel chains can afford to maintain the benefits.
The AFL-CIO has more on Local 2′s struggle for the last several months to negotiate contracts for their workers, with details on the companies and players involved. Photo via Steve Rhodes on Flickr, with hopefully more coming soon.
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This is what the union movement needs right now, a leader ready and willing to stand with the workers. And Trumka is a hell of a fighter.
So will Fox “News” decline to cover it, or cover it as, “Communists laying seige to SF Hotel?”
Trumka is a hero.
The average union housekeeper makes $30,000 a year.
How can anyone live in SF on that?
hear hear.
Unless there’s teabagging, Fox won’t cover it.
Dunno, but can you imagine what it’s like for those without a union?
Local 2 has been out there for years as the most militant union in San Francisco.
A month or so ago Brad Friedman went to a tea party thing to interview people. A coupla hundred tea partiers and 20-30 counter-demonstrators. 20-30 cops, almost all of whom were concentrating on the counter-demonstrators. I’m sure the video is still up at Brad Blog.
Hahaha! Try being a family of 4 living on $24K!
A bit O/T, but a good read…
Wow. A labor leader gets arrested in a labor protest. Stop the presses!
Gee, what crumbs we have become satisfied with.
They probably live in Richmond or Oakland. Not Sf or Marin. There is a guard on the other side of the GG bridge that checks skin tone before allowing anyone through.
When was the last time you saw the head of a major union or federation engage in civil disobedience? It’s fresh crumbs here.
Yes, Fresh Crumbs. Sounds like a subtitle for your post. *g*
There are a lot of latinos in Marin County, mostly clustered around the Canal district in San Rafael (and Marin City has other ethnic minorities).
In spite of the shocking affluence of Marin County generally, the social services for low income people here are unforgivably awful. Assistance with childcare, for instance, is nearly impossible to get. Unlike, say the East Bay, where social services are much easier to get.
Trumka is a stand up U.S. Citizen, and a true Hero. Lets hear it for the Nurses Union as well!
There are so many crucial issues that must be addressed right now: energetics, overpopulation, economic sanity, etc. What a mess the dems have caused, so far it seems that the dems would screw-up a cup of coffee. If we end up with a republican majority, in Nov. all of the critical issues will never get resolved in time.
we need to get rid of the dead-wood, quick. forget about stupid wedge issues for now, let us Unite to Save all of our United States.
I pledge to Vote for any Candidate that promises to enlist the United States Marines to remove all K-Street parasites from PEOPLES marbled halls of Congress.
(Any clue as to who or what is monkeying with the connection? is it the danged larry, moe and curly joe dept. of efficiency again?)
have a nice day!
The real question with Trumka and other labor leaders is will they stick with Obama and the Democrats who have royally shafted them. I think they will with some grumbling. They would be much more effective if they announced they were sitting out the 2010 elections, except for a handful of pro-union, liberal candidates. But I’m guessing they won’t do this.
I agree with eCahn this is mostly atmospherics, even a distraction, to cover for unions’ relative inaction.
Union officials say profitable corporate hotel chains can afford to maintain the benefits.~~~~~~
Indeed, they can. Hilton is owned by Pete Peterson’s equity group Blackstone. There have been several threads about him here recently. Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia:
On July 3, 2007, Hilton Hotels Corp. agreed to an all-cash buyout from The Blackstone Group LP in a $20.1 billion deal that would make Blackstone the world’s largest hotel owner. The private equity group said it would combine cash from its real estate and corporate private equity funds to buy all outstanding Hilton shares for $47.50 each, a 32 percent premium over the July 3 closing stock price. The companies valued the deal at $26 billion including debt.[1]
In February 2009, Hilton Hotels Corp., announced that its headquarters were moving from its three buildings on Civic Center Drive in Beverly Hills to Fairfax County, Virginia, located between Washington, D.C. and Dulles International Airport.[11]The move was expected following to the 2007 acquisition, in order for the headquarters to be nearer to The Blackstone Group’s New York headquarters.[1]
NOTE: Blackstone and Goldman Sachs formed the worlds largest insurance company just last summer.
Goldman Sachs has a huge investment in the hotel business too, namely in Hyatt Hotel chain,owned by Chicago’s Pritzker family.
It’s minimum wage.
Corporatism will only be stopped and brought to heel only by a rigorous and aggressive labor movement. The political parties have been purchased so it is up to organized labor to save, salvage and bring back to life the middle class in this country. With out the middle class coming back we are a nation doomed to second chair and finally becoming like lots of other nations in this hemisphere never mind China and Europe. It will take organized labor leadership like this action by Trumka and a strong willed American worker who realizes that without labor they are and will be simple slaves to corporatism cause and effect.
Trumka hasn’t forgotten where he came from, We have finally gotten a leader who’s not afraid get his hands dirty.
Fresh Crumbs indeed Michael -
one of the few bright spots of the last year was Labor’s presence in the streets of Chicago for the American Bankers Convention with Trumka speaking some Norskesque truth to power
Bmaz is hosting a very special post that replicates a Book Salon: “FDL Welcomes Drew Westen: Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010”
Allan Sloan – Deals: Goldman Sachs, the Waltons and a hotel money …Oct 26, 2009 … Hyatt got a $1 billion investment from Goldman Sachs and WalMart’s … Goldman and the Waltons put $1 billion into Hyatt hotels in a private …
http://www.washingtonpost.com › Columns –
Corporate governance of Hyatt Hotel’s proposed IPO criticized …Oct 28, 2009 … Chicago-based Hyatt Hotels Corp. announced recently that the … for ties to Goldman Sachs, a business partner of Hyatt and the Pritzkers. …
archives.chicagotribune.com/2009/oct/28/…/chi-hyatt-hotels-oct28- – Cached
San Francisco reached 52% non white in the 2000 census, a majority non-white for the first time.
When was the last time you saw organized labor giving a damn about the unemployed or the nonunionized working class?
$780 per month sounds like a lot (if these numbers are even true), but that’s over 10 years.
Hyatt could easily afford $78 per month increase per employee each year.
When was the last time you saw the non unionized Warlocks of Wall Street give a damn about American workers?
Uh, today? Always? What is the basis for your question? Labor fights day in and day out not just for their members but for the benefit of all working people.
Alan, check out the wiki on Blackstone and you will gain insight about their goals and objectives.
Yep, though I will note Chicago was planned by activist groups working with SEIU, who were out in the streets with SEIU Local 1 for a couple days before the AFLCIO and Trumka got in.
It would have been nice to see Nancy Pelosi or Barbara Boxer at the rally.
I live and do local politics in San Francisco and my partner is SEIU 1021.
San Francisco has a 20% unemployment rate now. Are we being organized by local labor?
Organized labor has not been decisive in a local election in some time. They were helpful in organizing for sick days and contributed a bit towards the living wage initiative in 2003, but they have a very low power to weight ratio.
Orgnized labor is part of the veal pen here.
The gains they won back in the 1930s are a bit threadbare nowadays.
If they’re fighting day in and day out for us, and we’re falling behind further and faster over time, then, Houston, “we have a problem.”
Spare any of whatever you’re smoking?
Are you serious ?
Trumka sold out union members on HCR.This is a ploy so when his members are going to have to pay a TAX on their health plans by the Obama WH Trumka is going to have this little “song-dance” to point to as proof he is fighting for his members.
Ask yourselves where was this effort when the congress was carving their Corporate Insurance bailout ?
That WH friday night party invitation means a lot to some people.
These hotel chains and large corporations are about defeating any chance of its workers organizing…
and keeping minimum wages even more minimal.
Take for example,WalMart holding indoctrination sessions last fall for its managers-insinuating that a vote for Obama would open the door to EFCA-and them losing their WalMart jobs?
Is it just coincidence that WalMart invested a billion dollars into the Hyatt chain,along with Goldman Sachs?
Passage of EFCA was one of Obama’s campaign cornerstones,btw.
How ironic that EFCA was used as a fear tactic about union mandates, YET here we are now being told we may be FORCED to buy mandated health insurance under penalty of IRS law if we don’t insurance .
The last time?
I recall that last summer the unions in Boston rallied strongly behind the fired housekeepers at one of the Hyatt properties in that city. Those housekeepers were non-union. In fact, unions ares still fighting today for those housekeepers.
And before that, I seem to recall something about the AFL-CIO pushing strongly for increasing the minimum wage (most union members, by the way, already do much better than the minimum wage).
It is beyond my comprehension that lobbyists with millions of dollars at their disposal ,and who actually write legislation that disempowers American workers, have more respect than unions.
That’s delightful, labor taking a direct interest in the situation of a few thousand workers, only a few tens of millions more to go!
Amazing, now the minimum wage is raised to, what, 115% of the poverty wage for an individual, 60% for a family of four?
Thank you sir, may I have another?
When you set your standards that low, you can’t help but winning. I think that the non-rich in America deserve more.
I don’t disagree with you at all that big labor could, and should, do more for low-wage, non-unionized workers. They DO deserve more.
But why piss on organized labor on the occaison when they actually do the right thing?
I lauded local 2, but at the rate that organized labor is moving relative to capital, we’re falling further behind faster.
How much longer do we need to wait for organized labor to get its act together at the meta level? How much cover does labor expect, how much more are labor’s defenders going to shame working people for demanding better?
Had labor not folded upon Obama’s command for Medicare for All, then the topic of the national health debate would be on terms favorable to what Local 2 is demanding from the Hilton, instead of playing frenzied defense against the most regressive, labor hostile individual mandate and cost shifting of health care expenses to union workers.
Did I miss something here? The AFL doesn’t and hasn’t supported the Senate/Obamco proposal. Although Stern and SEIU have been up to their elbows helping to write it.
How much longer do we need to wait for organized labor to get its act together at the meta level~~~~~~~~~~
HOW much longer before Americans in general see through the anti-union rhetoric and brainwashing done by PR firms and Chamber of Commerce,to the detriment of American labor?
It started with Ronnie Raygun overruling the air controllers unionback 30 nor so years ago.
Its gone downhill as corporate profits and Wall Street have gone through the roof.
American Rights at Work – HomeAmerican Rights at Work is a nonprofit advocacy organization whose mission is to support workers’ rights to a free choice and a fair chance to join a union.
http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/ – Cached – Similar
Employee Free Choice Act
Employment Anti-Union Network
Quick Facts
Broken Labor Law
More results from americanrightsatwork.org »
Drum Major Institute for Public PolicyA non-partisan organization dedicated to providing a sustained environment for the open discussion of major policy issues with the goal of fostering …
http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/ – Cached – Similar
DMI > AboutJul 12, 2006 … The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy is a non-partisan, non-profit think tank generating the ideas that fuel the progressive movement. …
http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/about.html – Cached – Similar
How much longer will labor continue to blame its slide on others instead of taking personal responsibility for cleaning up its own mess, for stopping the interminable internecine warfare led largely by Ivy Leaguers who have never “worked” a day in their lives?
The moment a political formation blames others for its inability to take control of the political debate, it disqualifies itself further. The numbers are clear, the record of unions is clear, and Americans will not be confident in organized labor until organized labor is confident in Americans.
Americans are not going to break into a sweat over EFCA until they see a union as something they want to join. Americans will not see a union as something they want to join until they see labor making headway for American workers.
Organized labor stands at the pinnacle of the left/progressive/liberal side of the spectrum as far as resources goes. They control a plurality of progressive politics. Yet they’ve not played their hand that has been relatively stronger than anyone else on the “left,” yet much weaker than corporate America’s hand, in a way that inspired the non-rich.
That only came to be when the Democrat/Labor coalition, smashed during the 1950s, finally exhausted itself in the 1970s.
The activist left expects some sort of entitlement of support on behalf of others without having to provide any sort of benefit in exchange. Had labor adapted to attacks instead of hunkering down and shrinking while Americans were led on a race to the bottom, then it would not be facing the problem that it faces.
Again, blaming working people, even those like me in a union household, from questioning the effectiveness of organized labor is not the way to build support for unions amongst the non-rich. But it does buy chits by stroking union hacks.
Marcos is right about at least one thing.
The leadership of the national labor movement has been shown itself to be weak, self-interested, or corrupt (or all three) in recent decades. How can Americans be expected to rally around leaders like Lane Kirkland or John Sweeney?? Maybe, just maybe, things will begin to change with Trumka as the new national leader.
Most of here at FDL support labor, but that doesn’t mean we have pretend the mistakes of the past have never occurred.
Shit, if organized labor would attack the right wing and corporate America, standing up for American workers and the impact the American economy has on workers worldwide, with the vitriol it uses to maintain its franchise against critics from the left, we’d be in great shape.
RU you tailoring the comments for a particular point of view?
Marcos, I don’t recall any attempt to deflect accountabilty.
However, just as many poor folk have further reinfranchised the very politicians that have disenfranchised them by voting antilabor Repubes back in time and again..(remember”What’s the Matter with Kansas”?…I say that the negative attitude about unions is a product of a carefully orchestrated well funded hatchet job by corporate interests.
And John and Jane Q Public have bought it hook. line and sinker-and,are regurgitating the mantra that unions are bad.
Well,you are shit out of luck next time you need a nurse, cop, firefighter or mailman.
They are ALL union.
Folks need to be reeducated about the POSITIVE aspects that can come from coalescing-POWER to the PEOPLE-and that is WHY corporatists hate and fear unionizing.
It reverts power back to the masses.
Think the good ole boys club on Wall Street isn’t a de facto union in and of itself,Marco?
Only difference is WE are paying THEIR dues.
Capital adapted, labor did not. That is not the fault of working America, we were never welcome at that table, yet we pay the price for it.
American working people see that organized labor has been largely marginalized to the public sector and the monster truck driving building trades sector, that public sector organized workers earn more, have greater job security irrespective of competence, and receive better benefits than most Americans will ever dream of.
The labor movement has not been able to mount a challenge to the race to the bottom for most all American workers, yet has us paying top dollar for often mediocre talent. Labor often sides with the destruction trades in clearcutting our poor and diverse communities for fleeting jobs that leave behind unaffordable housing. What’s not sustainable about THAT picture?
If we don’t hang together, we’ll hang separately. We’re hanging now, the nooses are being fixed for labor.
WE are all paying for labor’s failure. Instead of assuming that all critique of labor is right wing anti worker in origin, why not read the words and respond to them instead of to your favored opponent?
The Demopublican and Republicrat Parties alike have been partners in an accelerated screwing American workers since Reagan. Labor has been a partner with the Democrats in that. Labor’s gotta daince with them what brung them.
Locally, I’ve worked on many campaigns where labor has been involved. I can’t tell you how well it speaks to labor’s coalition building skills that it sends in 25 year old white college educated interns to diverse community meetings dictating the union’s demands, insisting that we play ball. Those demnads, once met by power, split them from the coalition for use in screwing the community. Labor has a finite price buy out point and cannot be counted on to stand in solidarity with our communities.
Actually, it IS the fault of working Americans that we did not figure out a way to route around the failures of organized labor and represent our own interests in the political system.
Let’s not forget to factor in those “right to work” states,which essentially is right to work for less.
I am in no way dismissing accountability- I remember Walter Reuther, and I also remember the pride of the AFL-CIO and that little song…”look for the union label.” It was a point of pride to belong to something bigger than oneself.
NAFTA and CAFTA,now SHAFTA have further diluted the worth of American labor.
Were the unions complicit in negotiating these treaties?
@53
Agreed.
However, it goes beyond labor issues where the Americans have not demanded accountabilty from the politicians that were elected to represent them.
It is beyond me how the public have acquiescently accepted the betrayal from pols who who were elected to do a job for them,then turned around and did a job on them!
Yes, because labor supported the president and Congress that passed NAFTA and did not exercise political power representing 99.9% of Americans who are not superrich to change the outcome.
I want the right to work, labor should be fighting for that, changing the discourse. If labor cannot leverage its numerical advantages, then it has nobody to blame but itself and instead of lashing out critics, would do well with some introspection.
Seriously, labor has had 30 years to figure out how to make itself meaningful for tech workers but blames tech workers for the fact that labor has not advanced. As a tech geek whose employment prospects are diminished by age and national origin discrimination, labor has been AWOL on dealing with issues like Professor Norm Matloff’s H-1B Web Page addresses.
Organized labor standing up for undocumented workers is great, but what about organized labor standing up against legal immigration designed to drive American wages down by forcing us to compete with 3d world labor at home?
Labor has the infrastructure, labor has the paid staff, labor has the advantages that nobody else on the “left” side has. Thus, with significant resources comes significant responsibility and accountability.
That NAFTA treaty, wasn’t that the Cllinton administration?
I never could understand how Hillary Clinton could sit on the board of WalMart all those years when Sam Walton was holding those union busting Board of Directors’ meetings…and noone said anything.
I feel for you and your predicament.
You seem very eloquent in your ability to verbalize the discontent and disconnect with the shortcomings of labor.
Have you considered starting a union yourself ?
In 1992, I was working as a contractor for a firm along with about ten others. They were playing fast and loose with paying our consulting firm, which told us that they couldn’t guarantee we’d be paid after a point.
I suggested that we threaten a wildcat walkout, informing the firm that they had one week to set things straight. The next day we came to work, paychecks were on our workstations.
I am an engineer and use those skills along with my analytical skills, to help our local progressive electoral coalition. I am not a grassroots organizer, I provide tools to them as part of a progressive electoral collective that wins more often than not.
Every time that there is an issue which interests me, yet the veal pen of advocates/activists stands between our communities, the bureaucracy and solutions, people tell me to form my own group to deal with it. Sorry, but in a democratic society, the only legitimate advocacy groups are accountable advocacy groups.
Any time that those with power, relative or absolute, resist calls for accountability and demand that those who would hold them accountable build their own organizations, it is instructive to the lack of esteem in which those who they’d claim as their constituency.
It is this democratic disconnect more than any campaign by the right wing that explains labor’s anemia.
May I paraphrase?
Any time that those with power, relative or absolute, resist calls for accountability and demand that those who would hold them accountable build their own organizations, it is instructive to the lack of esteem in which those who they’d claim as their constituency.
It is this democratic disconnect more than any campaign by the right wing that explains Obama’s anemia.
BTW, I think that in the case of Trumka and the Hilton hotel, the fact that Blackstone Group is the owner should have been made far more clear to the general public.
Just like with Hyatt.
Expose the real corporate money behind these businesses who wish to reduce labor to less than third world status.
EXPOSE the equity firms and corporate carrion who are profiting off others’ losses. MANY people would relate to that issue.
Uh, huh. See UHW and SEIU for an example of what happens when anyone challenges the official franchise.
Why do liberals believe that once some grant secret is revealed to people, they’re all of a sudden going to snap out of “it,” see “the truth,” and admit that “you all were right all along, why didn’t I just see it?”
If you want people to follow you politically, you’re going to have to give them a reason to, and if that involves the workplace, you’re going to have to figure out how to provide avenues for them to make their work lives better.
No matter how much you all rant and rave, labor unions as currently constituted are not viewed that way by working Americans and unions haven’t taken any steps to make them appear that way to working Americans.
The kind of reaction you all are demonstrating is the face that unions present to average Americans, and this goes a long way to explain why unions have been powerless to help American workers from sliding down to we are where we are.
Marcos, exposing the greed of Blackstone/Hilton is a damn good start.
Pete Peterson is in the warp and woof of the Neocon and globalist malaise that has affected Americans lives-whether they are union or not.
Right, a few snippets down the news memory hole.
The game is changing out from under us right now, and unless there is a progressive vision of how government is going to continue to provide the kind of services it has given the change in the economy and prospects for continued instability, we are going to get screwed on health care, we are going to get screwed on social security and we are going to get screwed on jobs.
Either organized labor is able to push an alternative agenda or they’re not and its time for us to get ready for some Disaster Capitalism, Shock Doctrine and Structural Adjustment right here at home.
@#19 and @#63
Conservative Mogul Buying Up Reporters to Promote His Regressive …15 posts – 6 authors – Last post: 20 hours ago
Pete Peterson, the Wall Street billionaire who wants to loot Social Security, has created a.
http://www.alternet.org/…/conservative_mogul_buying_up_reporters_to_promote_his_regressive_agenda – 20 hours ago