Harvard’s 550 food service workers are fighting for Sustainable Jobs. For the first time they have joined forces with Yale’s food service workers.
Like many university food service workers Harvard’s dining hall employees are on layoff four months a year. Bylaw university employees can’t collect unemployment. And even though wages have increased, between 2010 and 2009, the average worker saw pay decrease by almost $900 because Harvard cut 50,000 hours of work.
Workers and students are fighting back, and demanding that the University produce food onsite from whole ingredients instead of shipping in packaged and preserved foods. Food produced at the University will be better food and will create better jobs. Harvard Local 26 shop stewards and students recently traveled to Yale to meet with UNITE HERE Local 35 leaders and Yale students. Through years of struggle and strikes, the Yale workers have won Sustainable Food and Sustainable Jobs including:
- Guaranteed work 12 months out of the year at their regular wages
- No subcontracting of food preparation, and
- Real worker, student and administration collaboration to create the healthiest food produced in the most environmentally responsible way.
Harvard and Yale Union members and students will all be together again on Thursday, May 12, 8pm for a rally at 1st Parish Church in Cambridge (1 Church St. at Mass Ave). All Local 26 members are invited!
Workers at Boston’s “Ames” hotel join UNITE HERE
On September 8th, 86 workers at “Ames,” a luxury boutique hotel in Boston, joined UNITE HERE Local 26. Ames is the 12th hotel to join Local 26 since 2000. Workers at the W hotel joined Local 26 earlier this year.
Rabbis step up pressure on Hyatt
Roused by the firing of 98 Hyatt workers in the Boston two years ago, a group of Jewish clergy from around the country has issued a report assailing labor practices at the hotel chain.
The report spotlights Hyatt’s treatment of its housekeepers, calling attention to its increased use of subcontractors that pay lower wages and offer fewer benefits.
It goes so far as to deem the hotel chain as being not kosher because of its labor practices.
The new face of unions: Young hipsters are filling the ranks in the service industry
At a recent installment of “Cocktail Wars,’’ a bartending competition on the Boston nightlife circuit, hotel worker Melissa Godfrey glanced around the room and noted how many people she knew from union organizing work. Over there, a young woman who works at the W Boston. Up there, a bartender from KO Prime, the swank steakhouse at Nine Zero.
“Most of the people in the room were union,’’ she said.
Hotel Workers at W Boston Join Local 26
Around 200 housekeepers, bellhops, restaurant staff, valets, and maintenance workers at the two hotels are now members of UNITE HERE Local 26, the Boston division of the national hospitality workers union. Union officials said membership gives the workers a pension plan, low-cost health insurance, and a limit on the number of rooms they have to clean every day.
Harvard and Yale Food Service Workers Unite!
Like many university food service workers Harvard’s dining hall employees are on layoff four months a year. Bylaw university employees can’t collect unemployment. And even though wages have increased, between 2010 and 2009, the average worker saw pay decrease by almost $900 because Harvard cut 50,000 hours of work.
Workers and students are fighting back, and demanding that the University produce food onsite from whole ingredients instead of shipping in packaged and preserved foods. Food produced at the University will be better food and will create better jobs. Harvard Local 26 shop stewards and students recently traveled to Yale to meet with UNITE HERE Local 35 leaders and Yale students. Through years of struggle and strikes, the Yale workers have won Sustainable Food and Sustainable Jobs including:
Harvard and Yale Union members and students will all be together again on Thursday, May 12, 8pm for a rally at 1st Parish Church in Cambridge (1 Church St. at Mass Ave). All Local 26 members are invited!