UNITE HERE Local 1

NEWS UPDATE!
For immediate release Sept. 5, 2008
For questions please contact Annemarie Strassel, Communications Coordinator at (312) 617-0495

‘America’s Next Top Model’ auditions
move, honoring Congress picket
Hours before event at Congress Hotel, new location announced

Chicago, Ill.—Striking hotel workers at the Congress Plaza Hotel, who have been on strike for the last five years, can claim one victory today. Earlier this week, “American’s Next Top Model” announced that it would stage a local casting call Saturday morning at the Congress Hotel, but moved the event to a new venue Thursday evening following outcry by strike supporters.

Facing the prospect of hundreds of fans and hopeful contestants crossing the picket line, Congress Hotel strikers and fellow members of UNITE HERE Local1, the hotel workers union, had planned a picketing action and protest of the hotel during the Saturday auditions.

UNITE HERE Local 1 and its supporters in the local and national labor movement also coordinated extensive outreach to producers of the popular television show, executives of the CW television network, and Cover Girl make-up, a key sponsor of “America’s Next Top Model.” The Chicago and Los Angeles chapters of AFTRA, the actor’s union, played a particularly key role in assisting Local 1 with this outreach.

Following a swarm of concerned phone calls and e-mails, producers of the show sent an e-mail to leaders of AFTRA LA, announcing that the event had been moved “due to the long-standing labor dispute with the Congress Plaza Hotel and its union workers.” The show’s website posted a new location, the Hyatt Regency at McCormick Place, Thursday afternoon.

Strikers from the Congress Plaza Hotel went on strike on June 15, 2003, after the hotel decided to freeze wages and slash benefits. Now the longest active strike in the country, workers there have braved five cold Chicago winters to ensure that hotel jobs in this city are strong, family-sustaining jobs.

UNITE HERE Local 1 represents over 15,000 hotel, food service, and gaming workers
in Chicago and Northwest Indiana.

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