Photo credit: West Hollywood Patch, March 9, 2012
On International Women’s Day, March 8, hotel housekeepers and members of UNITE HERE Local 11 were joined by the National Organization for Women, Stonewall Democrats, and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE-LA) outside of the Hyatt Andaz in West Hollywood to demand Hyatt Corporation provide safe, healthy and dignified workplaces for the women who work there.
According to UNITE HERE, “Hyatt housekeeper injury rates are high, and its subcontractors exploit immigrant women. Hyatt has opposed legislation that would make housekeeping work safer. In San Francisco, Hyatt threatened to fire a woman who refused to return to work three days after a Caesarian Section. Last October, Hyatt fired two sisters with 30 years of combined experience, after one objected to the posting of demeaning pictures of housekeepers in bikinis on a company bulletin board.”
As part of the action, housekeepers wrote personal stories on pillowcases of their struggles at work and hung them from clotheslines on Sunset Boulevard. Similar actions occured outside Hyatt hotels across the country.
