Join the Hyatt Boycott: Tell the Hotel Chain to Rehire Housekeeping Staff Now!

categories: Activism, Cities, Corporations, Inequality, Jobs & Unemployment, News, States, The Economy, Unions, Women

Published September 24, 2009 @ 06:30AM PT

On August 31, 3 Boston-area Hyatt properties laid off 98 housekeeping staff, many of them seasoned employees earning $15/hour, and replaced them with outsourced staff from a Georgia company that pays $8/hour and offers far fewer benefits. The hotel chain cited financial difficulties as justification for laying off these vulnerable workers, and threatened compromised customer service if they were forced to walk back this low-road economic decision. Particularly at issue is the false pretenses the housekeeping staff alleges in which they were laid off and tricked into training their own replacements, a charge the corporation denies.

MA Governor Patrick isn't buying it - and neither should you. Governor Patrick has enacted a boycott of Hyatt properties by state employees - a move more symbolic than financial in impact - but one that has already forced Hyatt to extend severance benefits and work more closely with laid-off workers on re-training and job placement assistance.

That's not enough - if we allow companies to pursue these low-road strategies, where they pursue profitability mainly through cutting worker costs through outsourcing to the latest lowest bidder - we're condoning the permanent insecurity of the lowest-wage, lowest-skilled workers, who are already hit hardest during economic downturns.

Join Governor Patrick and the National Employment Lawyers Association in this boycott - and send a letter to Hyatt President and CEO Mark S. Hoplamazian today, telling him that you don't support these low-road business measures and that you will not be patronizing Hyatt properties until these 98 housekeepers are reinstated.

Sign the petition now.

(Photo of the Hyatt Regency Cambridge, one of the targeted hotels, by mathplourde)

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Comments (7)

Disgusting. I can never afford to stay at Hyatt anyways, but Now I will tell my family and friends. Greedy should not win. People BEFORE Profits! Whatever happened to HUMAN decency?

Posted by Rachel Russell on 09/24/2009 @ 12:32PM PT
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There is no excuse for the horrible way in which this economic decision was handled. But we need to ask how many hotels have to default on their loans, reverting back to bank ownership before more banks begin to fail. This will lead to more government money being spent to save banks. Our money. Do you think anyone would save one of these hotels if they went out of business? It is a shame that each of these poor housekeepers chose to lose their job rather than join the new company taking a paycut. yes at half the wage but who has not had to take a paycut this year? How many millions have lost their jobs in similar fashion? This is about a rally cry for a Union that is in negotiations in all the major cities and nothing else. If all these people who want to boycott had just stayed at these hotels cuts like these would not have been necessary. As a PHD candidate you should explore both sides of what brought this on. Educate yourself on UniteHERE and all the missing money they have taken from their hard working members to give to governors like patrick. They should be joining together with the hotels to solve these situations not create more!

Posted by Theo Clampton on 09/24/2009 @ 02:01PM PT
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Please contact Hyatt (Ph: (800) 323-7249, Ext: 3445) to let them know that you are boycotting until those housekeepers are rehired.

We are also keeping an online petition at http://www.hyattboycott.com which has been growing daily as more people contribute signatures.

Posted by Hyatt Boycott on 09/24/2009 @ 03:55PM PT
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Governor Patrick has no room talk. He has laid off 120 employees from a department with a $39,000 budget that brought in $130,000. To make matters worse He has cut the services that department provides! (Registry of Motor Vehicles)

Posted by Charlie Reed on 09/24/2009 @ 05:08PM PT
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Absolute right......Devaluate Patrick needs to keep government out of this and concentrate on his own state. He is such hypocrite....

Posted by Dennis L on 09/29/2009 @ 10:40AM PT
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I think that Hyatt is oracticing a public view of economic down-sizing. They are't he only business that is doing this, however, thus far they are the only ones that have gotten caught and the news made public. now that sucks

Posted by Aaron Shaw on 09/24/2009 @ 10:40PM PT
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Why aren't we doing this with Bankers, Stockbrokers and Insurance execs?

Gov. Patrick isn't a very good governor though.

Posted by Thomas Porter on 09/25/2009 @ 12:00PM PT
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Author

Leigh is a PhD candidate in urban planning at MIT, and a consultant on U.S. Gulf Coast recovery. She sits on the Board of the Allston-Brighton Community Development Corporation in Boston, and has worked with non-profits, foundations and local governments on policies and programs aimed at reducing urban poverty and inequality.