One Job Should Be Enough: Support Westin Hotel workers

UPDATE (June 28, 2018)

Hundreds of @UniteHereLocal8 hotel workers are picketing outside the @WestinSeattle for a fair contract! #1job #UniteHere pic.twitter.com/rLHuJoHZDF

— MLK Labor (@MLKLabor) June 27, 2018

— ► From MyNorthwest — Hotel workers to rally outside Seattle Westin — “Many hotel workers can’t afford to live here, many hotel workers have to have two or three jobs,” said Erik Van Rossum with UNITE HERE Local 8. “And I think that is a shame for the richest hotel company on the planet … Marriott is the richest hotel company on the planet, and their workers don’t need two or more jobs just to survive in the city or the region where they work.”

The following is from UNITE HERE Local 8:

SEATTLE — On Wednesday, June 27, Seattle Westin workers will hold a demonstration to launch contract negotiations and join an international campaign to call on Marriott, the world’s biggest and richest hotel company, to provide one job that is enough for hotel workers.

Marriott is the largest and richest hotel company in the world and has more operated and branded hotels in Seattle than any other hotel chain. After five years, the contract for the nearly 400 Westin Seattle workers expired on May 31, and hundreds of UNITE HERE Local 8 members are taking to the street in a show of power as we organize for a new contract. This is the first time that Local 8 members will be at the bargaining table with Marriott, which acquired the Westin’s former operator Starwood in 2016. Across North America, Marriott employees who are members of UNITE HERE will also be taking action.

TAKE A STAND — RSVP at the Facebook event page to show your support for Westin workers by joining them at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, June 27 outside the Westin Hotel, 1900 5th Ave. in Seattle.

In addition to demanding Marriott provide jobs that are enough for workers to live on in Seattle and other high-cost cities, workers will call on Marriott to protect their ability to serve guests, use technology to innovate, not cut, human service, and offer stronger protections for safety at work, including from sexual harassment.

This demonstration of hotel worker power comes just days before the July 1 effective date for the administrative rules for the Seattle Hotel Employees Health and Safety Initiative. These rules pave the way for Seattle hotel workers to take action to enforce their rights under Initiative 124, which was approved overwhelmingly by voters in 2016 and granted workers panic buttons and other protections from sexual harassment and workplace injury.