The Congress Hotel is not part of the hotel association that reached agreement with the union last September covering 27 hotels in the downtown and O’Hare airport areas. At that time, hotel workers organized several large mobilizations, winning significant wage and benefit increases without a strike.

Many of the pickets on June 22 work at those other hotels and came out to show their commitment to winning a similar contract now for the Congress Hotel workers.

“Their first offer was a 25 percent cut in pay. That made everyone mad, but the management insisted ‘there’s nothing you can do, that’s the way it is,’” said Ezequiel, a worker in the restaurant. “So we voted to strike, 113 to 1!” on May 29.

Mario Moreno reported that when his supervisor in the laundry announced the implementation of the 7 percent cut in pay, “everyone was shocked. We didn’t believe it. We told him the union never agreed to this. The boss just snapped back, ‘you don’t work for the union, you work for us.’

“Then everyone started seeing the pay cut in our checks. Now we were really mad. We had a meeting, decided to go out June 15 and everyone joined the walkout.”

The management claims that the union demands are unreasonable given a downturn in the travel and convention business and increased competition among hotels, which has led them to reduce their room rates.

A spokesperson for the union, Lars Negstad, countered that the wages before the 7 percent cut were already at the low levels the hotel association paid before the September contract settlement. That means the Congress had been paying 13 percent less than other Local 1 employees, and now claims it has to cut even more. He called these company actions “outrageous.”

A housekeeper at the Congress now makes $8.21 an hour, while most unionized housekeepers make $10.

Moreno also was skeptical about the management claims. He pointed out that when business dropped, half his department was laid off. So with the big conventions filling up the hotels now, they have to do the same work as before, but with fewer people. “They just want to defeat us, to get rid of the union here,” he said.

Picket lines are staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. On the line Sunday, Robert Hellom, who has worked for 43 years at the Palmer House Hilton, explained that he sees this fight as the next step forward for his union. He wants to see all the hotel workers under the same contract with one expiration date. He is part of the union committee that organizes hotel workers in the 27 hotels covered by the new contract to come out and join the picket lines, and carry out other strike support work.

Negstad explained the union has also reached out to workers applying for work at temporary agencies with the facts about their fight. “We’ve had success in one-on-one discussions,” he said. “They don’t know when they go in there that they will have to cross a picket line to take this job. They are the most exploited workers of all.”

www.CongressHotelStrike.info offers online information and updates on the strike.

Pattie Thompson is a sewing machine operator in Chicago and a member of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE).  
 
 
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