Santa Clara Hotel Workers Fight for Justice in the Workplace

Union members, hotel workers and activists from San Jose joined the protest at the Hyatt Hotel in Santa Clara, one of the 14 cities throughout North American who faced similar protests against what they call “billionaire owners who take unfair advantage of these tough times.”

Hotel workers and community allies were prepared to get arrested during what they called a non-violent civil disobedience. Throughout the 14 cities, over 1,000 were ready to get arrested. The number of arrests was not that high, but at least 25 were arrested in Chicago, for example, where 200 people took the streets. 600 protested in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and nearly 40 were arrested in Indianapolis.

Here in the Bay Area, 150 people were arrested at the San Francisco Grand Hyatt. There are three other Hyatt Hotels in San Francisco, and one in Santa Clara.

In Santa Clara, worried about a possible sale of the Hyatt Santa Clara Hotel, union representatives delivered a letter to the hotel managers, in which they express their worries about the working and safety conditions regarding the possible sale.

There are about 275 workers at the Hyatt Santa Clara, according to Mrs. Eleazar Duwark who has been a hotel worker for over 20 years.

Some of the workers however, expressed their happiness to be employed by Hyatt Santa Clara.

Jorge Amador, bartender for over 15 years, said his salary is “excellent,” and is happy for the free food and benefits he receives.

Trinidad Lopez, worker for over 30 years, also said he is happy and does not understand why the union wants to enter, against the will of the majority.

On the other hand, workers, activists and union members of the hotel industry arrived in support of the Hyatt Santa Clara workers.

“We need to support our own, here at Hyatt they have workers who don't join a union because they are afraid, some elders don't have benefits, that's why I'm here, to be heard,” said Lourdes Martinez, of Local 19 of San Jose.

Veronica Perez, who works at the Four Point Hotel by Sheraton in San Jose, accompanied by her daughter, said, “Let's see if they listen and start increasing pay to our colleagues. It doesn't matter if the protest is taking place in Santa Clara, where there are barely any Latinos, but look around at all the Hispanics here, most of them come from San Jose.”

“When the hotel changed to Hyatt, the hotel changed my job classification and cut my wage from $13 to $8.50 per hour,” said Rigoberto Gutierrez, according to a press release from Unite Here Local 19.

Gutierrez, a room service server who has worked at the hotel for 13 years, also said, “I am over fifty years old and I do not have any savings for my retirement.”

Patricia Santiago, with MAIZ, The Action Movement Inspiring Service, of San Jose, said, “Workers are denied of service, there is no equality in benefits, there are many women who have given all their efforts after many years and are still not taken into consideration.”

Calvin Miaw, organizer of the Unite Here Local 19 Union that represents over 5,000 workers in Northern California, said that the hotel industry, especially the Hyatt chain of hotels, is taking advantage and using as an excuse the recession, to tell its workers that there cannot be any salary increases.

That is why, according to Miaw, Hyatt does not want unions, and that is why they want to sell their hotels at Long Beach, Indianapolis, and Santa Clara, and they refuse to talk about the future of all these workers.

Hyatt hotels are run by the Pritzkers from Chicago, one of the wealthiest families of the United States. According to Forbes, eleven members of the Pritzker famliy were among the 400 richest Americans, each of them with fortunes ranging from $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion.