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LOCAL News :: Labor

One year on later...and still striking

By Mark W. Anderson Associate Editor

Despite what they contend is an unresponsive owner, a risk to their livelihoods, pickets that total thousands of miles of walking in the cold, heat, rain and snow, workers at the Congress Plaza Hotel remain dedicated to their cause—to receive fair wages, full benefits and respect.

The strike, which will reach the one-year mark on June 15, is a familiar sight to Columbia students and faculty who pass by the hotel’s front doors at 520 S. Michigan Ave. Recently, the striking worker’s union, Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local 1, has attempted to expand the focus of the strike by highlighting abuse charges against the 101-year-old hotel’s owner, Albert Nasser, who operates garment-manufacturing plants in the Philippines.

As it approaches its one-year anniversary, the Congress strike is the longest ongoing hotel strike in the country, according to Clare Fauke, spokeswoman with Local 1 of HERE.“A year is a very long time to be on strike,” she said. “But the reasons why we’re striking are important, and the strikers themselves are committed to seeing the battle through.”

The strike was called last June after the hotel cut employees’ wages by 7 percent and stopped making payments on their health benefit packages, according to www.congresshotelstrike.info, the strike’s official website. Previously, the hotel had refused to participate in a citywide master agreement negotiated in 2000. The agreement allowed nearly 7,000 hotel workers to win a considerable raise from 28 of the city’s hotel properties after former Illinois Gov. George Ryan stepped in to mediate.

For its part, the hotel has accused the union and striking workers of unreasonable demands and intimidating behavior in their attempts to settle the dispute. Peter Andjelkovich, attorney and chief negotiator for the Congress Plaza Hotel, said in a statement, “The union has demanded a 50 percent increase in wages and a 100 percent increase in benefits” and has adopted a “take it or leave it position.”

Andjelkovich points to a slumping hotel industry in Chicago as the reason for the wage cuts. He also disputes the union’s version of the benefits cut, saying that the hotel has continued to pay into the fund set up to dispense workers’ benefits.

The National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that investigates and remedies labor practices, is set to hold a hearing about the dispute on May 24.

Workers out on the picket line, however, say it’s mostly been a series of hardships and challenges, along with the occasional encouragement from customers and passers-by. Many of the approximately 90 workers who are on strike, including some who had been with the hotel for as many as 30 years, were forced into seeking part-time work elsewhere in order to supplement the strike pay they receive as part of the union.

Meanwhile, those who walk the line have had to learn how to deal with the weather and the logistics of manning a picket line that operates from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week. Workers who picket often do so in five-hour shifts, and as many as 15 to 20 picketers can be found on the sidewalk at peak times.

“We didn’t know that we would be here for a year. Striking for a year is not easy,” said Cornelio Rosado, 45, a banquet worker who had been hired by the hotel in 1980. “Nobody’s happy that we have to do this, but we have to show to the owner that we want our rights.”

Beyond the highly visible picket line, which has operated since the strike began, the Chicago local of HERE has looked to expand its tactics in an effort to pressure the owners into coming to an agreement that would restore the employees’ wages and benefits.

“We have a multipronged approach in going after customers,” Fauke said. “One of the things we do is to go after the groups who have conferences there. We talk to their organizations—if they’re from out of town, they might not have heard about the strike, or if they have, they might not understand what it means in terms of service. So we tell them, ‘Hey, this is what’s going to happen when you come to this hotel—you don’t want to come here.’”

Fauke also points to the union’s purchase of travel advisories on popular Internet travel sites and surveys of departing customers as tools used to put pressure on the hotel’s owners.

According to Fauke, business has dropped dramatically since the strike began, and she estimates that the hotel has averaged 20 percent occupancy over the past year, well below the accepted industry standard of 65 percent needed for a hotel to break even.

For its part, the union attributes this drop in business to the range of different weapons it’s using in the battle against the owners.

The hotel’s owners were also recently sued by the city for building code violations. As a result, 2nd Ward Alderman Madeline Haithcock and others have called for the hotel to close.

But the biggest and most recent strategy the union has used to go beyond the picket line is an attempt to highlight the “globalization” aspect of the worker’s struggle and the similarity in labor practices both here and abroad of the hotel’s primary owner, Albert Nasser.

In March, representatives of the Chicago local visited a factory in the Philippines that makes women’s undergarments for Gel-Mart Industries, one of Nasser’s companies. They reported that “much of the [factory’s] production has shifted to nonunion subcontractors, and employees assigned to work in the subcontractors alleged practices that appear to be violations of national labor law and international labor standards.”

At a May 3 rally held in front of the hotel to call attention to these charges, John Wilhelm, general president of the national hotel workers union, drew a clear parallel between what the union believes is happening in the Philippines and the struggle for workers’ rights here at home.

“One of the faces of globalization is to drive down wages and benefits here at home,” he said. “Most Americans don’t support sweatshops, but one of the things globalization does is exploit labor, both here and abroad.”

Marvin Daniels, one of the striking hotel workers who was asked to go to the Philippines to report on what he saw, said the experience was eye-opening.

“The union asked people if they wanted to go, and I was ecstatic when I was chosen,” he said. “What I saw motivated me more and more, especially seeing how tough those workers were over there. Some of the workers said [management] would give them shots on Friday so they could work straight through the weekend without pay. It just made me want to see this strike through to the end.”

Daniels said that the length of the strike has made his fellow workers more committed to a successful resolution.

“I think we’re pretty much getting to him [Nasser] now,” Daniels said. “We’ve hit him from every angle, and I think it’s starting to work.”

The 43-year-old doorman, who worked for the hotel for six years before going on strike, also sees a growing bond between the workers who have walked the line throughout the ordeal.

“When we first started, it was hard,” he said. “But we’ve grown a lot stronger. We’ve become like a family since we’ve been out there so long.”
 
 

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