Fearing reductions in the dining staff’s hours in Harvard College’s residential houses, UNITE HERE Local 26, the union representing dining employees at the University, has solicited the support of students through a flyer campaign as undergraduates return to campus.
The flyers allege Harvard is “using austerity politics to marginalize essential workers” after collecting tuition during the pandemic and growing its endowment through the fiscal year 2020.
“At the same time, Harvard is pushing food service workers to the sidelines by slashing full-time jobs and cutting hours – even though more students are on campus than ever,” the flyer reads.
In July, Harvard University Dining Services announced changes to its menus and hours beginning this fall, including full breakfast service at Annenberg and Quincy House, longer breakfast and dinner hours, and more kosher, halal, vegan, and vegetarian options. HUDS spokesperson Crista Martin wrote the new service model is designed “to continue to meet the changing needs of students and our community.”
“These updates will necessitate some modifications to staff schedules, but as we have shared with the union, those adjustments will be undertaken over time, with union input and in accordance with the union contract,” she wrote.
At the union’s request, Harvard shared preliminary schedules with Local 26 for the coming academic years, according to Martin.
Local 26 President Carlos Aramayo said in an interview that the union analyzed those proposed schedules and determined they would amount to a 20 percent cut in the number of full-time dining employees in residential houses and an 8 percent cut in total hours available.
Martin wrote it was “premature” to comment on the union’s analysis, especially as the preliminary schedules would not fully go into effect until the 2022-23 academic year. HUDS is currently piloting the new menus it announced in July so that the union and students can give feedback on the new model, according to Martin.
“It would be premature to comment on the proposed service models and draft schedules that have been shared with Local 26 during these negotiations,” Martin wrote. “As the University has shared with Local 26, these models and schedules are being piloted, and not implemented until fall 2022, with feedback and input from the union over the course of this academic year.”
Harvard committed to not laying off any current HUDS employee while the new model is being discussed this year, according to Martin. She added all current employees affected by the changes next year will be offered comparable positions, which HUDS believes will be possible given current projections.
Aramayo said he believes any cuts to workers’ hours contradicts Harvard’s commitment to an equitable and sustained recovery that supports its Black and brown workers.
“What we’re seeing is proposed changes to the schedule that will leave a fifth of the people who have full time positions in the dining halls working below full-time,” he said. “With Harvard putting out these proposed changes to the schedules and to the meals, a fifth of the people with full-time jobs in dining services are now facing profound uncertainty about the future, and they want to do something about it.”
Hakim Akendar, a pantry steward in Winthrop House who has worked at Harvard for more than 20 years, said he is afraid of losing 10 hours in shifts, meaning he would no longer be considered a full-time employee.
“I was hopeful that we’re going to move on to better days, especially [since] we have more students coming to Winthrop,” he said. “I was hopeful that I’m going to put Covid behind me, move on to better days. I’m shocked that this is what’s happening.”
Reduced hours would strain his finances and his ability to support his family, Akendar added.
Charlene V. Almeida, a dining employee at Quincy House with more than two decades of experience at HUDS, wrote in a statement that she might not be able to make rent in Cambridge or feed her children on reduced hours. Citing Harvard’s financial stability during the pandemic, she called on the University to protect dining staff and their families who are “part of Harvard too.”
“Harvard claims to be committed to this community,” she wrote. “They should be making sure we all recover from COVID-19.”
The Harvard College Student Labor Action Movement helped Local 26 flyer campus. It is also holding a teach-in to support the dining workers on September 4.
“Once again, the richest university in the world is attempting to cut HUDS worker jobs and hours,” the organization wrote in a statement. “Rather than guarantee dining hall workers good paying and stable jobs, Harvard is making their futures uncertain with the threats of additional cuts. All this in the midst of a global pandemic and while our dining halls are short-staffed as it is.”
Local 26 ultimately hopes to avoid any cuts in hours for its employees.
“At the very least, a restoration of the number of hours that we had in 2019, if not an increase, is essential to have, from our perspective, a fair and equitable recovery coming out of Covid and to allay the fears and concerns of our members,” Aramayo said. “We’re always willing to discuss that with the University.”
The union’s shop stewards “are going to look at every possible action that we could take to punctuate how important this is to get resolved for our members over there,” he added.
In 2016 during their last round of contract negotiations, hundreds of HUDS workers went on strike for 22 days over compensation, health care, and job security, ultimately reaching a tentative agreement with the University.
—Staff writer Cara J. Chang can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @CaraChang20.
—Staff writer Meimei Xu can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @meimeixu7.
‘We’re Part of Harvard Too’: Dining Workers’ Union Flyers Campus, Concerned Over Proposed Hours Cut
Fearing reductions in the dining staff’s hours in Harvard College’s residential houses, UNITE HERE Local 26, the union representing dining employees at the University, has solicited the support of students through a flyer campaign as undergraduates return to campus.
The flyers allege Harvard is “using austerity politics to marginalize essential workers” after collecting tuition during the pandemic and growing its endowment through the fiscal year 2020.
“At the same time, Harvard is pushing food service workers to the sidelines by slashing full-time jobs and cutting hours – even though more students are on campus than ever,” the flyer reads.
In July, Harvard University Dining Services announced changes to its menus and hours beginning this fall, including full breakfast service at Annenberg and Quincy House, longer breakfast and dinner hours, and more kosher, halal, vegan, and vegetarian options. HUDS spokesperson Crista Martin wrote the new service model is designed “to continue to meet the changing needs of students and our community.”
“These updates will necessitate some modifications to staff schedules, but as we have shared with the union, those adjustments will be undertaken over time, with union input and in accordance with the union contract,” she wrote.
At the union’s request, Harvard shared preliminary schedules with Local 26 for the coming academic years, according to Martin.
Local 26 President Carlos Aramayo said in an interview that the union analyzed those proposed schedules and determined they would amount to a 20 percent cut in the number of full-time dining employees in residential houses and an 8 percent cut in total hours available.
Martin wrote it was “premature” to comment on the union’s analysis, especially as the preliminary schedules would not fully go into effect until the 2022-23 academic year. HUDS is currently piloting the new menus it announced in July so that the union and students can give feedback on the new model, according to Martin.
“It would be premature to comment on the proposed service models and draft schedules that have been shared with Local 26 during these negotiations,” Martin wrote. “As the University has shared with Local 26, these models and schedules are being piloted, and not implemented until fall 2022, with feedback and input from the union over the course of this academic year.”
Harvard committed to not laying off any current HUDS employee while the new model is being discussed this year, according to Martin. She added all current employees affected by the changes next year will be offered comparable positions, which HUDS believes will be possible given current projections.
Aramayo said he believes any cuts to workers’ hours contradicts Harvard’s commitment to an equitable and sustained recovery that supports its Black and brown workers.
“What we’re seeing is proposed changes to the schedule that will leave a fifth of the people who have full time positions in the dining halls working below full-time,” he said. “With Harvard putting out these proposed changes to the schedules and to the meals, a fifth of the people with full-time jobs in dining services are now facing profound uncertainty about the future, and they want to do something about it.”
Hakim Akendar, a pantry steward in Winthrop House who has worked at Harvard for more than 20 years, said he is afraid of losing 10 hours in shifts, meaning he would no longer be considered a full-time employee.
“I was hopeful that we’re going to move on to better days, especially [since] we have more students coming to Winthrop,” he said. “I was hopeful that I’m going to put Covid behind me, move on to better days. I’m shocked that this is what’s happening.”
Reduced hours would strain his finances and his ability to support his family, Akendar added.
Charlene V. Almeida, a dining employee at Quincy House with more than two decades of experience at HUDS, wrote in a statement that she might not be able to make rent in Cambridge or feed her children on reduced hours. Citing Harvard’s financial stability during the pandemic, she called on the University to protect dining staff and their families who are “part of Harvard too.”
“Harvard claims to be committed to this community,” she wrote. “They should be making sure we all recover from COVID-19.”
The Harvard College Student Labor Action Movement helped Local 26 flyer campus. It is also holding a teach-in to support the dining workers on September 4.
“Once again, the richest university in the world is attempting to cut HUDS worker jobs and hours,” the organization wrote in a statement. “Rather than guarantee dining hall workers good paying and stable jobs, Harvard is making their futures uncertain with the threats of additional cuts. All this in the midst of a global pandemic and while our dining halls are short-staffed as it is.”
Local 26 ultimately hopes to avoid any cuts in hours for its employees.
“At the very least, a restoration of the number of hours that we had in 2019, if not an increase, is essential to have, from our perspective, a fair and equitable recovery coming out of Covid and to allay the fears and concerns of our members,” Aramayo said. “We’re always willing to discuss that with the University.”
The union’s shop stewards “are going to look at every possible action that we could take to punctuate how important this is to get resolved for our members over there,” he added.
In 2016 during their last round of contract negotiations, hundreds of HUDS workers went on strike for 22 days over compensation, health care, and job security, ultimately reaching a tentative agreement with the University.
—Staff writer Cara J. Chang can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @CaraChang20.
—Staff writer Meimei Xu can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @meimeixu7.
Terminated Marriott Copley workers launch hotel boycott
A group of workers terminated last fall by the Boston Marriott Copley Place are launching a boycott against the hotel, escalating their fight to be reinstated as the summer travel season approaches and the beleaguered hospitality industry struggles to recover.
The employees, backed by the local hospitality workers union, are calling on guests and organizations to take their business elsewhere until the hotel agrees to reinstate the 230 workers who were let go. The workers are also demanding full severance pay instead of the reduced packages they were offered.
The boycott, set to be announced at a rally in front of the Marriott Copley on Friday morning, comes at a crucial moment for the hotel industry, which is starting to show signs of life as people get vaccinated and plan vacations for the first time in more than a year. The pandemic has devastated properties in Boston, which suffered bigger drops in revenue per available room than any other market besides New York and isn’t expected to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2025.
As the second-largest hotel in Boston, and one of the few with a ballroom big enough to host more than 1,000 people, the Marriott Copley hosts many galas and dinners. GLAD, the Boston-based legal advocacy group for the LGBTQ community, hosts a fund-raiser there every year, including one scheduled for November. Since learning about the boycott, GLAD has taken action, executive director Janson Wu said in an e-mail: “We have let the Marriott know that we are not comfortable hosting our annual fundraising dinner there should the status quo continue. We hope that they will change course and do right by their employees and the community.”
Workers also plan to reach out to politicians, religious groups, and other worker advocacy groups to promote the boycott, which could be relatively easy to comply with given that travel isn’t expected to fully rebound right away. That means there will be more rooms available than usual, giving guests plenty of options to choose from, said Carlos Aramayo, president of Unite Here Local 26, which doesn’t represent the Marriott Copley workers but has been supporting their efforts. The boycott is a serious commitment for workers, who will continue picketing at the hotel, and it’s crucial they are front and center delivering the message, Aramayo said.
Local 26 said it has prevailed in all four boycotts it launched over the past decade: at three Boston-area Hyatt hotels starting in 2009, when housekeepers were fired after training their replacements, which resulted in a million-dollar settlement; and at Le Méridien Boston Cambridge in 2012, DoubleTree Suites by Hilton Hotel Boston-Cambridge in 2014, and Hilton Boston Back Bay in 2016 — all demanding a fair process to join the union.
In 2014, Market Basket customers boycotted the grocery chain — an action encouraged by local lawmakers — in support of workers who walked off the job after their beloved CEO was ousted; after more than six weeks of protests, the CEO was reinstated.
“This is one of the worst examples we’ve seen of using the pandemic to cynically make permanent changes to the workforce,” he said. “And I think hopefully once the traveling public is aware of that, and given that there are going to be a lot of deals out there, they’ll choose to spend their dollar elsewhere until this gets resolved.”
Alan Smith, general manager of the Marriott Copley Place, declined to comment on the boycott.
After reopening in August, the hotel quickly moved to permanently lay off half its workforce, including Adi Fejzic, 52, whohas worked at the hotel for 19 years, after fleeing the war in Bosnia and arriving in Boston with nothing. He started in housekeeping and became a banquet server a few years later, regularly working double or triple shifts and sometimes staying overnight at the hotel in order to get up before dawn and start again the next day. One year, when 700 Muslim guests from Malaysia were staying at the hotel during Ramadan, Fejzic said, he worked through the night to serve meals to guests who were fasting during the day.
“Sometimes I couldn’t see my kids for four or five days because I’m working always,” he said.
Fejzic and his wife, who is a housekeeper at the Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel, which is also a Marriott property, put their son through college at UMass-Amherst and were paying their daughter’s tuition there until they were both furloughed.
Fejzic and his wife, who is a union member with a 30-month right of recall to get her job back, are also struggling to pay the mortgage on their condo in Melrose. They’ve started to sell furniture and clothes, he said.
“I feel really like a piece of garbage,” he said.
Fejzic supports the boycott and is grateful to be doing something that could help him and his coworkers get their jobs back. The Marriott Copley was his first and only job in the United States, and he doesn’t know what else he can do to support his family.
“Who is going to take me at 52 years now?” he said. “I’m really scared. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Katie Johnston can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @ktkjohnston.
Recall Legislation to be Introduced in Front of Boston’s Worst Offender on Jobs Crisis
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 18, 2021
Contact: Nicki Morris, 857-498-2495, [email protected]
Twitter: @unitehere26
Press Conference and Picket Line: Recall Legislation to be
Introduced in Front of Boston’s Worst Offender on Jobs Crisis
UNITE HERE Local 26 joins Senator Joe Boncore, former Marriott Copley
employees fired in middle of pandemic, to back recall legislation
What: After months of mass firings in the hospitality industry, UNITE HERE Local 26 called
March 22, Massachusetts’ Reopening Day according to Governor Charlie Baker, the deadline for
Boston hotels to publicly state that they planned to retain their furloughed workers. Not a
single hotel stepped forward to state their plan to recall their workers. Over the past year,
thousands of hotel workers sat at home, waiting for the phone to ring. In cases like the Marriott
Copley and the Revere Hotel, workers there have been permanently fired. Many feel utterly
betrayed, their decades of service and loyalty suddenly amounting to nothing. Because hotels
refuse to do the right thing on their own, the Hotel Comeback Bill is being introduced in the
Massachusetts House and Senate. The legislation seeks to get the hotel industry back on track
by allowing experienced workers to return to work once the COVID crisis is over.
At the Marriott Copley, after surviving on employment since March due to the COVID-19
pandemic, Marriott Copley workers were shocked and horrified to learn their furlough was
permanent. In September, over 230 Marriott Copley workers were fired. They were not offered
the chance to return to work when the crisis was over, but instead told they could reapply,
losing decades of service they put into Marriott. To add insult to injury, many fired workers
were offered less than half of the severance pay they had expected after years of loyalty and
hard work due to a sudden change in policy. Although the Marriott Copley workers are not
union members, UNITE HERE Local 26 is supporting them in their fight for just treatment.
When: Tuesday, March 23, 2021 from 10:00am-11:30am
Where: Marriott Copley Place, 110 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02116
Who: Recently fired Marriott Copley hotel workers, UNITE HERE Local 26 President Carlos
Aramayo, Massachusetts Senator Joe Boncore
Note: Interviews available by phone, and after the event over Skype, and Zoom
Why: With over 8,000 union and nonunion Boston hotel workers unemployed, the members of
UNITE HERE Local 26 are proud to be working with Senate Joe Boncore and Representative
Marjorie Decker to provide some peace of mind for thousands of regional hotel workers. With
protections in place, Massachusetts could allow hotel workers to return to their positions once
the COVID-19 crisis is over, if and when their positions return.
Similar policies have gone into effect in several California cities, including Los Angeles, San
Francisco, San Diego, Oakland, and Philadelphia. Recently, Providence, Rhode Island became
the first East Coast city to provide such protections for hospitality workers.
###
UNITE HERE Local 26 is the hospitality workers’ union and represents over 12,000 members working in the hotel,
food service, and airport industries in Boston and Rhode Island. Learn more at www.local26.org
UNITE HERE represents over 300,000 members working in the hotel, gaming, food service, and airport industries
across the US and Canada. Learn more at www.unitehere.org.
Boston Marriott Copley Boycott Press
Hotel workers hoping for pandemic job protections
MARYANN SILVA HAS worked for 19 years as a full-time banquet server at the Ritz-Carlton hotel on Boston Common. The 63-year-old Lynn resident sets up and serves food to guests for weddings, meetings, birthday parties, and corporate events.
She was “temporarily” laid off in March when COVID-19 hit and the hotel closed. But the property still hasn’t reopened. Silva remains on unemployment benefits and has no idea if she will get her job back. Silva is divorced with no children and takes care of her 97-year-old mother. She had been earning $60,000 a year. Now, she has turned in her leased car for a less expensive one and worries about losing her home if she can’t continue to pay her mortgage.
“It’s so uncertain,” Silva said. “You’re working, at least you know you’re out there making a living for yourself and your family.”
An amendment that will be considered as part of the House budget debate this week could give laid-off workers like Silva a small measure of hope. It would require hotel workers laid off due to the pandemic the right to be rehired into their old jobs if those jobs are brought back. The amendment was introduced by Rep. Marjorie Decker, a Cambridge Democrat, and pushed for by the union UNITE Here Local 26, which represents Boston area hotel workers.
For Silva, the knowledge that her job is protected “would take a lot of stress off of my shoulders,” she said.
UNITE HERE Local 26 president Carlos Aramayo said, “What people are looking for is some peace of mind that if and when the job is recreated, they will have the first chance to take that job.”
The head of the Massachusetts Lodging Association did not return a call for comment. The national American Hotel and Lodging Association has generally opposed these types of policies, arguing that they place an additional burden on employers struggling to recover from the pandemic.
The amendment would not mandate anything, but would let individual municipalities adopt a “right to recall” policy. Under that policy, a hotel that lays off a worker due to the pandemic and then reinstates that job any time during a two-year period would have to offer the laid off worker their old job back. There would be civil fines for noncompliance.
Decker said hospitality workers have been hit hard by COVID-19 “and if we’re going to really be able to have a strong recovery in our economy we have to make sure the workers who helped build this economy and are most experienced are given the shortest path back to their jobs.”
Similar policies have been adopted on a municipal level in several California cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Oakland, although a statewide right to recall bill was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Newsom, a Democrat, said it would create an onerous burden on employers. A right to recall policy was also adopted earlier this month in Providence, Rhode Island.
Aramayo said the policy is necessary because of how hard the pandemic hit workers in the hospitality sector.
According to state labor statistics, there were more than 380,000 Massachusetts leisure and hospitality jobs in January. That dropped to below 140,000 in April and has bounced back only partially, to 242,000 jobs by September.
“Thousands of hospitality workers in the hotel industry were put out of work and continue to be out of work because the industry relies heavily on not just tourism, but also large-scale events that are not scheduled to happen anytime soon,” Aramayo said.
Aramayo said many industry workers are older, female, immigrant and have little formal education. “These are not people who are going to be easily retrained for other jobs that would be equivalent in terms of income and standard of living,” he said. He worries that hotels will try to cut costs by replacing more experienced workers who have higher salaries with younger, cheaper workers.
Aramayo said of 4,500 Boston hotel industry workers his union represents, only 400 to 500 are back at work. UNITE HERE workers do have a contract that requires managers to recall workers for up to a year after a temporary layoff. The amendment would extend that to two years and would also cover non-union workers.