News/Press

• Aramark convention deal canceled over service, union flap
  7.17.2008 -- The Boston Herald
  
  The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority yesterday dumped Aramark Corp. as its concessionaire at the Hynes and South Boston convention centers, citing disappointing service and an ongoing labor dispute with a food-service union.
  
  The authority also signaled yesterday it may end up running the catering and concession services on its own - a prospect that brought sharp criticism from a tax activist who warned the authority might end up dishing out lucrative contracts to union members who’d become virtual government workers. [Full Story]

• Convention center may look for new food service
  7.16.2008 -- The Boston Globe
  
  The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority said that it has notified Aramark Corp. that it is looking for someone else to provide food and beverage services at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center and the John B. Hynes Veteans Memorial Convention Center.
  
  While Aramark has held the $27 million concessions contract since 1997, the authority "consistently has been concerned with the quality and level of service provided" since early 2005, the authority's executive director, James E. Rooney wrote in the letter to Aramark, a concessions company headquartered in Philadelphia.
  
  Additionally, Rooney told the Globe that Amarak has not effectively managed relations with its union, which picketed both convention centers for three days last month to protest several of its contract-negotiation members being fired last year. [Full Story]

• Feds charge Aramark violated labor laws
  7.11.2008 -- The Boston Herald
  
  Aramark Corp. is getting toasted for the way it allegedly treats its union food-service workers at the Hynes and South Boston convention centers.
  
  A National Labor Relations Board counsel has filed an unfair labor practice complaint against the giant concessionaire, charging that it’s intimidated and fired employees for their union activities at the centers.
  
  Aramark, which is locked in a bitter contract battle with Unite Here Local 26, faces a hearing this October before NLRB administrative judges. The company could end up shelling out thousands of dollars in back pay and other expenses if it’s found to have violated labor laws.
  
  Among other things, the complaint - which the NLRB issued last week after looking into Unite Here charges that union members were routinely harassed by Aramark managers - said the concessionaire’s executive chef regularly “denigrated” the union in front of employees and threatened to punish workers if they raised workplace issues. [Full Story]

• Labor board issues complaint against Aramark
  7.11.2008 -- The Boston Globe
  
  The National Labor Relations Board has accused concessions giant Aramark of intimidating and firing employees involved in union activities at Boston's two convention centers.
  
  The Boston Herald reports that the labor board made the charges in an unfair labor practice complaint against Aramark Corp.
  
  Aramark faces a hearing this October before the board's administrative judges.
  
  The Philadelphia-based company is locked in a contract dispute with Unite Here Local 26. The complaint, issued last week, claims Aramark has been "interfering with, restraining and coercing" its employees at the Hynes Convention Center and the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. [Full Story]

• Statement of the American Sociological Association Regarding Labor Dispute at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and the Hynes Convention Center
  6.30.2008 -- American Sociological Association Press Release
  
  In accordance with previous actions by the American Sociological Association (ASA) in support of fair labor practices and the welfare of workers, the ASA Council urges that the Aramark Company operating at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center and the Hynes Convention Center negotiate with UNITE HERE Local 26, the Boston Hotel and Foodservice Workers Union, to provide fair wages, health and other coverage, and engage in no retaliation against union negotiators.
  
  The ASA Council affirms the Association’s intention to sign no food service contracts with Aramark unless the contract issues are settled before our Annual Meeting. The ASA is holding its 103rd Annual Meeting in Boston, July 31 – August 4, 2008, with a meeting theme of “The Worlds of Work.” [Full Story]

• El la unión está la fuerza
  6.26.2008 -- El Planeta
  
  Los trabajadores del Boston Convention Center y Hynes Convention Center se fueron a huelga por tres dias durante el fin de semana para exigirle a su contratista, Aramark Corporation, que les mejore el salario. El 90% de los afectados son latinos.[Full Story]

• Food services workers step up protest
  6.22.2008 -- The Boston Globe
  
  Scores of food services workers marched in front of Boston's two main convention centers yesterday, launching a three-day strike to protest what they consider unfair labor practices.
  
  The strike, which began yesterday and will continue through tomorrow, encouraged weekend convention-goers to express solidarity by going without their mainstays: coffee, sandwiches, and snacks. [Full Story]

• Postal union to skip food at confab over labor issue
  6.17.2008 -- The Boston Herald
  
  A national letter carriers union canceled food service for its upcoming convention in Boston, in a show of solidarity with local food-service workers fighting for a new contract. [Full Story]

• Unwelcome in Boston
  6.13.2008 -- The Boston Globe
  
  Janice Loux is preparing to go to war, which is a familiar stance for the labor leader.
  
  "I told these women we would walk arm in arm with them, and we will," she said while sitting in her Chinatown office this week.
  
  Loux is the longtime head of Unite Here Local 26, which represents employees in the hospitality industry. Right now she is not feeling the least bit hospitable toward Aramark, the food-services giant, which has fired two members of the union's bargaining committee in the middle of contentious negotiations. [Full Story]

• Share the convention wealth
  6.4.2008 -- The Boston Globe
  
  The Boston Convention & Exhibition Center on Summer Street is starting to make its presence felt, besting event records for attendees, hotel room rates, and economic impact. But the banquet servers, dishwashers, and other food service workers who make the center hum are not sharing in the abundance.
  
  Last night members of Local 26 of the union UNITE HERE authorized a strike against Aramark Corp., the Philadelphia-based multinational company that provides food service to BCEC and the Hynes Convention Center. Few of the roughly 300 Aramark food service works receive employee benefits, according to Local 26 president Janice Loux. It is time, she says, that workers receive a "fair shake." [Full Story]

• Hub hotels, union reach accord after year of talks
  4.25.2007 -- The Boston Globe
  
  More than a year after negotiations began, four Boston hotels managed by New York-based Starwood Hotels yesterday reached an agreement with the labor union representing about 5,000 hotel workers in the Boston area.
  
  While the proposed 6 1/4-year contract covers wage and benefit increases only for the Sheraton Boston, the Park Plaza, and two Westin hotels in the city, it is expected to set the stage for new pacts at 15 other unionized hotels, including the Colonnade, the Parker House, and the Ritz-Carlton, that signed so-called me too agreements last fall committing them to abide by the contract terms negotiated by the Sheraton Boston. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Hub hotel union signs pact, with trimmings
  4.25.2007 -- The Boston Herald
  
  After months of protests and tense negotiations, the city's largest hotel union and Starwood Hotels yesterday reached a new contract agreement that averts a citywide strike - and guarantees workers free Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys.
  
  "It's a great historic victory," said Janice Loux, president of Unite Here Local 26, of the tentative agreement that ultimately applies to 19 city hotels with more than 5,000 workers.
  
  Workers got pay increases, a new defined-pension plan, and a reduction in the number of rooms housekeeping staff have to clean each day, Loux said. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Hotel workers stage sit-ins at restaurants
  4.17.2007 -- The Boston Herald
  
  Hotel union workers "occupied" three restaurants in city hotels yesterday, distrupting lunchtime crowds and chanting, "No contract, no peace!" [Full Story]
  
  
  
• 'Battle of the Beds' takes to Back Bay street
  3.28.2007 -- The Boston Herald
  
  Hundreds of hotel workers yesterday rallied outside the Sheraton Boston, diverting traffic while threatening to go on strike against four major city hotels unless a new contract is signed soon.
  
  "We're never going away and we're never giving up!" shouted Janice Loux, head of Unite Here Local 26, to a sea of protesters carrying red union signs. The rally partially blocked Dalton Street, but remained peaceful as police diverted traffic around the crowd. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Union moves Hillary
  3.23.2007 -- The Boston Herald
  
  We hear presidential wannabe Hillary Clinton has moved her big-money Massachusetts fundraiser on March 30 from the Boston Park Plaza Hotel to the State Room.
  
  HRC's campaign spokesman Blake Zeff reports "out of respect for Local 26" of hotel workers union - which last week authorized a strike vote against Starwood Hotels, the owner of the Park Plaza - the event venue was changed. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Jewish groups sign pledge to remain behind the picket line
  3.22.2007 -- The Jewish Advocate
  
  If Boston's hotel workers decide to strike next month, local Jewish organizations are vowing to stand behind them by canceling their multi-thousand dollar events being held at the upscale venues.
  
  Earlier this month, officials at the Rashi School, a Reform Jewish day school in Newton, and Jewish Funds for Justice, a national organization that fights poverty, signed a pledge created by the New England Jewish Labor Committee (JLC) that promises to stay behind the picket line if hotel employees in the area strike. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Four-star hotel discord
  3.15.2007 -- Boston Globe
  
  Maria Semedo is a housekeeper at the Sheraton Boston Hotel, where rooms routinely go for more than $150 a night.
  
  Semedo, 42, has worked at the hotel since 1988, shortly after she moved to Boston from Cape Verde. Over the years, she said yesterday, cleaning 16 rooms a day has taken a physical toll.
  
  "I have a pain in my back," she said. "In July 2005, I fell and hurt my head and leg, and my leg is still numb. So, I feel like, when I am 50, I won't be able to work anymore, because I have a bad back." Semedo was one of hundreds of hotel workers streaming into their union headquarters on Harrison Avenue yesterday. They were voting on whether to authorize a strike against Starwood Hotels and Resorts, owners of four major Boston hotels, and the results announced last evening were overwhelming in favor of a strike, with 1,013 members in favor and only 27 opposed. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Hotel employees to take strike vote
  3.14.2007 -- Boston Globe
  
  Employees at four Boston hotels are set to vote tomorrow on whether to authorize a strike.
  
  Members of Unite Here Local 26 who work at the Boston Park Plaza, Sheraton Boston, Westin Copley Place, and Westin Waterfront will be casting secret ballots at the union's Chinatown headquarters between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. The local will also be setting up booths to dispense information about how members can receive food and mortgage assistance, as well as other social services, if they vote to strike. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• African-Americans need apply
  12.11.2006 -- Boston Globe
  
  THE NUMBER of African-American hotel workers across the United States appears to be falling at the same time that foreign-born hospitality workers are rising into the middle class. The disappearing African-American hotel worker is just one of many problems that perpetuates an urban underclass. But it is a problem, at least, that a fast-growing, private sector union wants to tackle.
  
  John Wilhelm, president of Unite Here, which represents roughly 200,000 unionized hotel workers across the United States, says that new immigrant populations, including black workers from the Caribbean, have been replacing African-Americans in hotel service jobs for about a decade. [Full Story]
  
  
  
• Hub Hotels, Workers Have "Battle of the Beds"
  11.21.2006 -- Boston Herald
  
  Unite Here Local 26 - which represents 5,000 Boston workers whose contracts with 19 hotels in the city expire at the end of the month - is demanding a wide range of concessions from Starwoods Hotels, which is effectively negotiating a new citywide contract on behalf of the city's major hotels.
  
  Starwoods manages four hotels in Boston: Sheraton Boston, Westin Copley, Park Plaza and Westin Waterfront. Under a "me too" agreement, other major city hotels will abide by what Starwood negotiates. [Full Story]

• The U.S. Hotel Industry and Record Profits
• Why Hotel Housekeeping is Dangerous Work