Henkimaa » Hilton Anchorage

Sheraton Anchorage illegally fires four workers

Mel Green — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:47:25 +0000

I got word this morning that the Sheraton Anchorage, which has been under boycott by its workers since last November, today fired four of its workers for engaging in protected union activity.

On February 2, the four workers had been leafleting hotel guests and coworkers about the boycott, activities which are protected per at least two prior National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions:

Employees have the right to be in nonwork areas of their workplace to communicate with the employer’s customers about a labor dispute, using leaflets or picketing. Scott Hudgens, 230 NLRB 414 (1977).
Nonwork areas include the doors leading into the employer’s business. Santa Fe Hotel & Casino, 331 NLRB 723 (2000).

Sheraton management continuously interrupted the (off duty) workers as they leafleted prospective guests asking them to honor the worker’s call for a boycott of the hotel. Management took pictures, threatened to have security remove them, and eventually called the police — even though the worker’s activity was legal and protected. The following morning, the hotel’s general manager and human resources director suspended the four and escorted off them the property. Now, two weeks later, the workers have been fired.

Sheraton workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 878, voted in November to place the hotel under boycott after management, without negotiation, raised their monthly premium for family health insurance to $800 per month, an amount many workers cannot afford. Management also imposed a bigger workload, increasing the number of rooms housekeeping staff were expected to clean from 15 to 17 rooms per day. The changes at the Sheraton, which is owned by the Dallas, Texas based company Remington Hotels, are much like that imposed previously on workers at the Hilton Anchorage, which is owned by a Kentucky-based company, Columbia Sussex and was placed under boycott by its workers last May. Both boycotts ask people not to eat, sleep or meet at the hotels until each boycott is ended . [Ref #1-2] Just one day after the four Sheraton workers were suspended, on February 4, a “town hall” meeting hosted by conservative talk radio host Dan Fagan was short at least one of its schedules participants: Democratic gubernatorial candidate Ethan Berkowitz pulled out because to participate would require him to defy the boycott. [Ref #3]

It’s pretty clear to me that management at both the Hilton and the Sheraton — or at least the owners, Remington Hotels and Columbia Sussex — don’t give a damn about the health or welfare of their employees. Wow, here we go, corporations again. Wasn’t I saying something just the other day about corporate psychopathology? [Ref #4] Besides putting adequate family health care out of many workers reach, the demand that housekeepers clean 17 rather than 15 rooms per day is another risk to health. As I observed last fall [Ref #5], in a study based on OSHA records for 87 hotels from 1999 to 2007, UNITE HERE found,

On average, hotel workers experienced an injury rate of 6.4 per 100 workers, meaning that, in each year, more than six percent of the hotel workforce in these hotels suffered a documented workplace injury. Hotel housekeepers, however, faced a significantly greater injury rate of 10.4%, which is 86% greater than the injury rate experienced by non-housekeepers (5.6%). [Ref #6, p. 8]

And the faster they are required to work — in order to meet higher housekeeping quotas imposed by employers — the higher the risk of injury:

In recent years, the workload that hotel companies demand housekeepers perform has increased significantly. Chronic understaffing, coupled with the addition of time-consuming amenities—luxury items like heavy mattresses, fragile coffeepots and in-room exercise equipment—have placed housekeepers at greater risk of injury. In order to complete their room quotas, housekeepers are increasingly forced to skip meals and other breaks—rests necessary to prevent injury. Today, housekeepers’ bodies are at the breaking point. [Ref #6, p. 4]

But what the hell do the owners of either the Sheraton or the Hilton care, so long as they can rake in more profits for their own top management.

See references for more background on the Sheraton boycott. Stay tuned for more news of the four illegally fired workers. And, most importantly,

Don’t give the Sheraton, or the Hilton, any of your business
until they have negotiated & settled fair contracts with their workers.

References

11/16/2009. “Sheraton, Hilton workers unite to promote boycotts — WORKLOAD: Union says hotels want more rooms cleaned per shift” by Elizabeth Bluemink (Anchorage Daily News).
11/18/2009. “Vacancy (please)” by Brendan Joel Kelley (Anchorage Press).
2/3/2010. “In Brief” by Brendan Joel Kelley (Anchorage Press).
1/22/2010. “Government by psychopathy” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
10/1/2009. “In solidarity with Hilton workers” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
April 2006. Creating Luxury, Enduring Pain: How Hotel Work is Hurting Housekeepers (UNITE HERE). (Available through the Take Action page on the Hotel Workers Rising website.)

My story of 2009

Mel Green — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:19:28 +0000

And so I begin the new year by coming out of a period of silence.

A silence, to be sure, less profound than the one I inhabited this time last year. And for different reasons. In the last month or so, mainly I’ve just needed a break.

1. The cave

But on New Year’s Day 2009, I was living in a kind of emotional cave, with no desire or wherewithal to communicate with anyone outside my day-to-day life except immediate family. Especially my dad, who I’d learned just a couple of weeks before had been diagnosed with a terminal lymphoma. That news came on top of stuff I’d already been struggling with for some months, after my then-partner, Rozz who is now Ptery, made the decision while in school in Seattle to transition as a female-to-male (FTM) transsexual, & made accompanying decisions that have essentially ended our partnership as-it-was.

Thus, the cave, about which I wrote on April 2, a few days after coming out of it,

I seem to be have come out of the cave now. Not just feeling better — I’ve felt better a number of times (only to then go back into the grey again) — but actually able & willing to communicate. Maybe it was that I’m finally accepting the inevitable with my partner. Maybe it was finally getting the plane tickets bought to fly down in late April to see my dad. Maybe it was taking enough 5-HTP to keep the serotonin cooking in my brain. Maybe it’s the light coming into the days after a looooooong winter. Maybe it’s all just been perimenopause. Anyway… seems I’m back in the world again.

Now, before I go on, let me explain: this post isn’t just about the history of what I did or experienced in 2009: it’s also about what it meant. Or, better yet, the meanings I’ve made of it — because that’s what it’s all about, for me — the story, the stories each of us make of our lives. And this is my blog, of course, so this is my damn story.

And the story of coming out of the cave also has these meanings attached to it:

(1) The cave itself became a new term, describing a new form, of that rather large aspect of my life popularly known as depression (or, sometimes, despair): along with the grey, along with the pit, along with limbo — all of which are described in my late 2006 post The grey — the newly-discovered environment of the cave can include any one of the first three, or exclude all of them; it is chiefly characterized by that deep inability & lack of motivation to communicate. Big whooptie, a new term — but I do find the language useful in understanding myself around this stuff. Since, hey, halfway through my life give-or-take, I don’t see the depression/despair gunk suddenly evaporating from my life. It’s a part of who I am. I’m just lots better at handling it than before, & part of that is in refining my understanding of how it works in me.

(2) If I were to mark the exact date the cave walls dissolved around me, it would probably be March 30, 2009, which coincided with some important phone calls with Ptery, & also with my brother Mark & I buying our tickets to Spokane to see our dad for what we both understood would probably be the last time this side of our own deaths. And also on that day, I wrote a lengthy post in memorial to Nicholas Hughes, a fisheries biologist formerly at University of Alaska Fairbanks who had taken his own life the previous week. I hadn’t known him, but he was the son of the poets Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes, & Plath especially had been an significant figure in my life. Not for the right reasons, initially — but the post explains that: it was my effort to honor Mr. Hughes not as mere adjunct to his famous parents’ biographies — as many of the news accounts of his death seemed to view him — but for who he himself was & for what he brought to all the people in his life, who were mourning him that day.

(3) My dad knew I’d been having a hard time. He was at peace with his own approaching death, & wanted us to be too. But beyond that, he wanted our happiness. He was so glad when he heard I’d come out of the cave. That was one of the very best things about it.

2. Lima beans against WAR

Wow, after the Summer of Hate experienced by the Anchorage LGBT & allied community over Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64, one almost forgets its political prelude, when then-Gov. Sarah Palin named Wayne Anthony Ross — widely known by his license-plate acronym as WAR — to succeed the disgraced Talis Colberg as Alaska’s Attorney General. Alaska’s top LGBT blog Bent Alaska informs us that its post about WAR, “Palin’s AG Pick Called Gays “Degenerates” (3/29/09), was one of its two 2009 posts to go viral — & that was even before he compared gays to lima beans, a vegetable that he “hates” but still claimed he could represent if he were, say, the lawyer for “United Vegetable Growers.” We lima beans were, needless to say, not favorably impressed.

Ross also had a history of biased & even misogynistic attitudes in relation to domestic violence, sexual assault, & violence against women; hostility to Alaska Native sovereignty & subsistence rights; a mediocre reputation as a practitioner of law amongst his fellow members of the Alaska Bar Association; & a pretty shaky attitude about executive branch ethics. Bad news all around: it motivated me to spend a considerable amount of time & energy researching him, listening to legislative confirmation hearings, & writing a very long letter to legislators, which I posted on my blog — thus embarking upon a part-time career as an occasional political blogger. I wrote a few other posts about WAR, & commented on other sites’ coverage of him (especially Bent Alaska), & celebrated with most of the rest of Alaska when the Alaska Legislature rejected him by a vote of 23 yeas to 35 nays — an unprecedented rejection of a governor’s cabinet pick.

It took a day or two for the Alaska Department of Law to remove WAR from its website. This screenshot was taken on April 16. The red X is mine.

3. Dad

I flew to Spokane with my brother Mark in late April to visit Dad. We also saw my sister Mer & brother-in-law Julius, with whom my Dad lived, and my brother Dave drove over from Montana. Ptery hitchhiked up, at my request, so I got to see him too.

Dad was so happy to have all of us there. He had a lot of energy too, considering how ill he was; but near the end, as we began to return to our homes, he took a turn for the worse, as if he’d been holding to life so that he could see us all before he left us to be with Mom. She had died in November 2005.

I took this picture during that trip: Dad telling one of his wonderful stories about growing up in the lumber camps of eastern Oregon in the 1920s where Grandpa Claude ran locomotives on the Sumpter Valley Railroad for the Oregon Lumber Company; or about the bootleg operation he & his pals in the Army Air Corps had in England during WWII; or about how he met my mom when he was looking for a job, & guy at Ellingson Lumber Company suggested he head to Izee because the camp cook there had two beautiful daughters. It was the younger of the two daughters, my Auntie Pat, who actually introduced my parents after Dad gave her a ride into John Day, where Mom was then working.

That photo on the wall behind Dad was his favorite picture of Mom, taken by a professional photographer shortly before they met. When I look at this photo, I feel his yearning to be with her again.

I last saw him on April 29. He died not quite a month later, on May 27. My sister was with him.

I’ve been at peace about Dad’s death almost from the beginning, partly because the peace he himself had about it put me at peace, & partly because of what for lack of better words I will call the messages that came, three of them — two of them to other family members, & the last one to me. My message was from my mother, in the form of sunflowers. It told me that Dad was with her, & they are both okay.

On July 12, as many family members as could make it, including me & my sister & brothers, all gathered together in Spokane to remember Mom & Dad & to celebrate all that they gave us.

I love you, Mom & Dad.

4. Anchorage Ordinance 2009-64

The Anchorage equal rights ordinance AO 2009-64 was introduced in the Anchorage Assembly on May 12, & thus was my career as an occasional political blogger made much less occasional.

AO 64 would have added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of personal characteristics in Title 5, Anchorage’s equal rights code, which prohibits discrimination based on those characteristics in employment, housing, financial practices, education, and practices of the Municipality of Anchorage. The summer of 2009 in Anchorage featured a protracted period of public testimony at the Anchorage Assembly, with accompanying sign-waving and letter-writing both by ordinance supporters and those who opposed equal rights — led in particular by Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple, who used “perverted” and other hate-terms to describe LGBT people, hence the name given the summer by commentator at the Anchorage Press: the Summer of Hate.

Identity Reports (1989) and One in 10 (1986)

From May to September, I wrote in the area of 60 posts about the ordinance, including a number that delved into the background & prevarications of its most vociferous opponent, Jerry Prevo. I also testified in support of the ordinance on June 16 ( the second of five nights of public testimony). My testimony was based on two major research efforts in the 1980s for Identity, Inc. in which we documented the rampant discrimination in Anchorage & in Alaska based on sexual orientation. (Our research unfortunately did not cover discrimination on the basis of gender identity, which we knew little about at the time.)

The ordinance passed the Anchorage Assembly on August 11, 2009, but was vetoed the following week by Mayor Dan Sullivan — the third time in Anchorage history that equal protection for at least some LGBTQ people in Anchorage was first granted, & then stripped away again.

We weren’t real happy.

5. Friends & allies

The Summer of Hate wasn’t all hate & horror. There was also some really cool stuff.

Cool stuff was people like Vic Fischer, Jane Angvik, & Arliss Sturgulewski testifying for the ordinance — people with just a teensy bit more credibility than, say, self-declared homophobic Bible-thumping Nazi “rascist” Eddie Burke.

Cool stuff was the huge number of people who turned out on the lawn of the Loussac Library to dance, blow bubbles, & hold signs upholding equal rights for all. The second week of public testimony, on which testimony was heard on two successive nights (June 16-17), was also the run-up to PrideFest, & every time I stepped out of the Assembly chambers for a breather, I felt like PrideFest was already in progress (once, that is, I got past the ABT redshirts & their hot dog tables).

I remember going out there one day & seeing how everyone — members of the LGBT community, & lots of non-LGBT folks including my nephew Miles & some of his friends — was celebrating equality & love for their fellow human beings, as sour-faced, red-shirted opponents stood nearby with their preprinted “Truth is Not Hate” signs agitating against equality. I thought to myself, I’m so proud of my people — & I found myself for the first time consciously including in my people not just other LGBT people, but all the numerous non-LGBT allies who took it for granted that equality meant all of us. And were as dumbfounded as we were at the “Truth is Not Hate” hate speech dropping out of the mouths of red-shirts both inside & outside the Assembly chambers.

On a personal level, I was lucky to make some new friendships. John & Heather Aronno, both now of Alaska Commons, who I met a few days before the first public hearing, became my favorite folks to sit next to at Assembly public hearings: three bloggers, all in a row.

One of my other favorite new people was (& is) Janson Jones, whose fantastic photography at Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 (including of the ordinance battle) first drew my attention. He’s also an all-around cool guy who also became a new dad over the summer — & his photos of his precious daughter Aurelia are pretty wonderful too.

Thanks to the ordinance battle, I also got reaquainted with a friend from way back, Linda Kellen Biegel of Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, who I hadn’t seen in years. I’d known Phil Munger of Progressive Alaska through email, but not until this summer did I meet him in person. I’ve known M.E. Rider of Grrlzlist, E. Ross of Bent Alaska, & longtime activist (& maker of Equality Works buttons) Stef Gingrich for years, though it was only through the summer that we saw much of each other, since normally — yes, true story — I’m pretty much a hermit.

It was the ordinance that brought me out, for ill & for good. Despite the ordinance’s eventual fate — for me personally, thanks to people like these, it was mostly for good.

6. Palinesque

Somewhere in the middle of this was Sarah Palin’s announcement on July 3 that she would be resigning her position as Governor of Alaska. I don’t blog that much about Palin — there are other Alaska bloggers who cover her quite thoroughly (thank goodness!) — but within a few days after her announcement, I got fed up with how the national mainstream media was uncritically passing along what I dubbed the 2 million dollar meme: Palin’s claim that $2,000,000 taxpayer (or rather, oil revenue dollars — this is Alaska, after all) had been spent on responding to ethical complaints against her. So I started taking it apart, & continued to do so over at total of six blog posts.

Wow did that raise traffic on my blog. I got nearly 1,800 hits on the first post of the series the first day after it was published; to date it’s gotten 5,530 hits, making it the most read post on my blog. The pie chart I created for that post also proved to be pretty popular.

My stuff didn’t stop Palin from repeating her lie; but then, who expected that it would? I’m no fool. I just hoped the damn mainstream media would wake up & do the job they’re paid to do — so that bloggers like me wouldn’t have to do it for free. I am proud to say that my efforts, which Anchorage Daily News reporter Sean Cockerham picked up on, contributed to Linda Perez of the Governor’s Office being forced to admit there were errors in the hokey spreadsheet the Governor’s Office had cooked up in an incompetent attempt to back up Gov. Palinocchio’s claim. Cockerham’s story (posted, as far as I know, only on the ADN’s Politics blog, but not as a full-fledged ADN story) said that Perez was going to follow up on further questions he’d brought up — I’ve seen no sign that she ever did, or that ADN itself cared. I didn’t follow up further myself because by time Perez ‘fessed up as much as she did, I was in Spokane with my family remembering my mom & dad. I have a feeling everyone who had actual responsibility (because, of course, they were more than mere “community organizers”) decided to drop it. Gee. I wonder why.

7. I got a new couch

More properly, it’s a futon loveseat. Whatever. I got it in August, & I’ve been vegging more happily (when I vege) ever since. My cat loves it too.

8. An effort to up-end the Alaska Judicial Council

Other things were going on in my life too, of course. But the political stuff stands out, because political blogging is not my great purpose in life — writing my own stuff is. And yet, I kept doing it.

And so it happens that in late August I learned of a lawsuit by which certain Alaska conservatives, most if not all of whom have ties to the so-called right-to-life movement, had filed suit nearly two months before — a fact not covered at all by Alaska’s mainstream media in spite of all of them having received the press release when the suit was filed — which would, if successful, overturn major provisions of the Alaska Constitution with regard to the selection & retention of state court judges. The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, James Bopp, Jr., is a big name: he has litigated similar issues elsewhere. My own feeling is that this guy is more likely to have shopped around for the Alaskans who could be named as plaintiffs in this case, than that the plaintiffs shopped around for him. His agenda appears to be a nationwide effort to politicize judicial selection, so that candidates can be selected through popular vote based on litmus test questions on hot-button issues (“What is your opinion on abortion?” — “What is your opinion on same-sex marriage?”), instead of being selected for their judicial integrity & knowledge of the law.

Through my job on staff of the Justice Center at University of Alaska Anchorage, which I’ve held since 1990, I’d become very familiar with Alaska’s judicial merit selection process, & have a lot of respect for it too, & for the quality of judges we have in this state. Not perfect — but a helluva lot better than in states that have the politicized & often politically corrupt types of selection processes that Bopp seems to prefer.

So, I read about Miller v. Carpeneti, & I wrote about it, & I even took a day off work to attend the hearing before Judge John W. Sedwick in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska on September 11. I’m not a lawyer, but I read through most of the briefings, & it didn’t seem to me that Bopp’s arguments held much water. Judge Sedwick apparently agreed: he heard arguments from both sides & then dismissed the case. His opinion was published on September 15.

But we haven’t heard the last from Mr. Bopp: he’s appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and, last I heard, the last briefs in the case must be filed no later than February 10, 2010. Oral arguments might then follow. If Bopp fails at the Ninth Circuit, there’s every possibility he might appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court — he’s argued before them before, & won.

Meanwhile, I continue to wonder what in hell is wrong with the Alaska mainstream media, including our supposed paper-of-record, the Anchorage Daily News. First they all failed to follow up any further on Palin’s spreadsheet-of-hooey in support of her 2 million dollar meme-of-hooey; now it turns out they sat for nearly two months on a press release issued in early July about a lawsuit that could theoretically undermine our state constitution with regard to judicial selection. Phil Munger at Progressive Alaska has drawn attention to numerous other instances in which the press has sat on its duff instead of investigating & reporting stuff that in some cases is right in front of their faces — for instance, the numerous lies propounded throughout Palin’s putative “memoir,” which the ADN has yet to write any review on. What else are they sitting on? How are we to have democracy that way, if the MSM isn’t doing its job?

Oh yeah, I remember now. Bloggers like me are supposed to do that job nowadays. In our spare time. For free.

(All due respect to those reporters who as far as I can tell are doing their best to do their job — but are being shut down by management. I know you guys are out there.)

9. True Diversity Dinner

In the aftermath of Sullivan’s veto of AO 64, several of us bloggers who had been heavily involved in writing about it started talking about what we might do keep the flame alive. Several of us met at lunchtime one day, & out of someone’s suggestion — I don’t remember whose — next thing you know, the True Diversity Dinner was born. Its immediate impetus was that the upcoming Mayor’s Diversity Dinner, an event originally created during the administration of Mayor, now Senator, Mark Begich, had been renamed Mayor’s Unity Dinner by Mayor Dan Sullivan — the same guy who had just vetoed equal rights for Anchorage’s lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transfolk.

Instead of protesting, we decided to celebrate the rich diversity that the Mayor’s renaming of the dinner seemed designed to whitewash away. The True Diversity Dinner was our alternative, with the motto, “Because we all deserve a seat at the table.” It was organized by the bloggers of Alaska Commons, Anchorage Won’t Discriminate, Bent Alaska, Floridana Alaskiana v2.5, Grrlzlist Alaska, Henkimaa, and SOSanchorage.net — but especially by John & Heather Aronno (Alaska Commons & SOSAnchorage.net), who I fear fell far behind in their studies thanks to the dinner.

But it was well worth it, right guys? It was a tremendous event, with great speakers including my Assembly person Elvi Gray-Jackson, former Congressional candidate & longtime activist for Alaska Native rights Diane Benson, Rev. Marquita Pierre of the Center for Spiritual Healing, & radio host & blogger Shannyn Moore.

On top of that, I was honored to be the recipient of a True Diversity Award for Excellence in Online Media for coverage on my blog of the battle for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance. Booyah!

At the True Diversity Dinner. Photo by Janson Jones.

10. Hilton workers

And more occasional politics.

When the True Diversity Dinner was first thought up, I hadn’t known that Mayor Sullivan’s Unity Dinner was booked for the Hilton Anchorage Hotel — which was (& still is) under boycott by its workers due to the bad faith practices of its management on orders of the Hilton’s owners, Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex Corporation. A blog post by Shannyn Moore brought my attention to the fact that the Mayor’s Unity Dinner was also a union-busting dinner. I spent some time researching & writing about the labor dispute, & also attended the Hotel Workers Rising March from the Sheraton (which is now also under boycott due to similar management abuses of workers) to the Hilton two days after the True Diversity Dinner was held.

11. But I’m really about writing my own stuff, & that’s what I need to do now

I’d like to follow up on the hotel workers struggle, both at the Hilton & now the Sheraton. I hope someone will. But I can’t. Here’s the deal. There are people on this planet, there are people in this state, who thrive on political blogging, & what’s more excel at it. I think I’m pretty damn good at it when I’m doing it — but I don’t thrive on it. I start with enthusiasm, but over time… I wear down, my spirit flags, & pretty soon it winds right back into what I started this post with: depression & despair.

Midyear, in the post in which I claimed to be an occasional political blogger, I wrote,

The main reason I set up this site & blog was to help me get back into the flow of writing, of living my life as a writer. And while writing about politics is writing — well, it’s not my writing, the stuff close to my heart. Besides, I also work a full-time job.

Besides, sometimes the political stuff can really whack me out….

Another factor about how I handle political posts is that my style isn’t really amenable to fast-response writing, which is a feature of a lot of the best political bloggers I read. But me, I like to think a lot about what I’m writing. I like to go deep. I like to be thorough & as comprehensive as I can. I like to source all my references thoroughly. I like — apparently — to write term papers. (I sure never thought so when I was in college). And that takes a long time. Especially since, as previously mentioned, I work a full-time job. And I also need a certain amount of down time or I am liable to put myself into a depression.

Sometimes, writing my own stuff actually feels like down time. Reason: I said it above, it’s stuff that close to my heart.

So October saw me returning to writing — at that time, mostly background stuff or responses to stuff that I was reading in preparation for National Novel Writing Month 2009 (NaNoWriMo). In looking back, I remember that True Diversity Dinner month — that is, September — also saw a bit of focus on writing: a couple of politically-oriented pieces about homophobia in science fiction, including one involving a publication I was writing a story for. As it happened, I wasn’t far enough along on that story to meet the submission deadline of September 30 — so I picked up & polished an older thing instead.

And whaddaya know! in early October, I was told they wanted to publish it! Which did much to make me feel like a writer again.

“Cold” was published on October 31, 2009 in Crossed Genres Issue #12, the LGBT issue, & you can still read it online there. (When it’s no longer live there, & my contract with Crossed Genres permits, I will republish it right here at Henkimaa.com.) “Cold” was also selected for inclusion in Crossed Genres‘ first-year anthology, which will include one story from each of the magazines first 12 issues. I think it’s still on schedule for publication in February.

My username on NaNoWriMo: yksin.

November for me was the headlong hurry of NaNoWriMo. As a result, as anyone who knows this blog saw, I didn’t do much blogging at all. Such blog posts as got posted were mostly automatically generated “Daily Tweets” posts from my Twitter feed. And I haven’t done much blogging since NaNoWriMo ended, either.

But whoa! I did a lot of writing — 51,607 words worth of it in November, making me a NaNoWriMo winner this year…. er… I mean, last year. I was writing in the same story universe as “Cold,” which is about two young women on an extrasolar planet (that is, in another solar system) in the late stages of terraformation, which I’ve finally named Oikos — but my NaNovember 2009 writing was mostly about three centuries earlier in the timeline, before & around the time the ships that will eventually arrive at Oikos leave our solar system. I called it Long Dark.

And a lot of it was background writing, rather than the story itself. Because there is so damn much science that I need to have at least some kind of grasp on before I can do the story for real.

Though I came up with at least four stories over the course of the month that I know I can shape into good damn stuff. And I also discovered that a character of mine from a supposedly completely unrelated project is, whaddaya know, an important historical figure for the society in Long Dark and Cold. And since that character is very closely based on me… whoa, it’s an awful lot like, well, writing myself into history. How cool is that?

(Or how egotistical?)

12. Since then…

… that is, during December — what have I been doing? Not blogging, clearly. Except for one extensive rant about the leakage in various portions of my ceiling. (Now cured, but the holes in the ceiling still need patching.) Other than that, lots of vegging out, some writing, lots of reading — my latest topics have included atmospheric pressure, altitude sickness, & spacesuit design (background research for a story in the Cold universe) & how people with strabismus or amblyopia (the latter being the case for me), most of whom grow up stereoblind, might be able to develop stereo (binocular) vision. Even at 50 years old. Which is what I am now.

50 years old, soon to be 51. And now I reflect on where I was at when I turned 50, early in 2009. I was still in the cave. But there were inklings of possibility. I was still in the cave, for instance, when a confluence of ideas led me to decide how to go about my writing life, which included blogging & other forms of social media to get my stuff out there, instead of just through the old “send out craploads of query letters & get a shitload of rejection letters back before someone finally decides your stuff is good enough to publish” method that has been standard for a very bloody long time. I knew I’d feel a lot more at ease finding my own audience through social media than going through the query letter drudgery. It was still pretty remarkable that I made such a decision at such a time, though: social media? for someone who, at that point, was incapable & unmotivated to communicate at all? But then, I knew the cave walls would dissolve sooner or later. And they did.

I was also deciding, back in February of 2009 that age 50 was a good time to reach the milestone that I had apparently reached in the sorrows of that time. The boy that I & Rozz-now-Ptery raised from age 9 was now 21 (& now, some months later, is actually 22), & is setting out on his own course in the world. He’s in a residential job training program; I seem him some weekends when he comes into town. Ptery is embarked on another course, living a nomadic life mostly off-the-grid in the Lower 48; we are no longer partners, however much we still love each other. So, I am single &, except for my cat & the boy’s dog, essentially alone.

When I was in college & took a class on Hinduism, I learned that the traditional life path for very pious Brahmin males was supposed to consist of several stages — four of them, I think — with the third stage being that of husband, father, & householder. When the householding stage was over, these guys were apparently supposed to just up & lickety-split out to the forest to become religious ascetics. Or something like that.

And when I turned 50, I thought: that’s it, I’m no longer a householder. Well, I still have my apartment. And I don’t plan to go live in the woods as an ascetic. (Ptery’s path is a little closer to that, really.) But I no longer have the responsibilities of a spouse/partner or of a parent to a minor child. I can do what I want. And what I need.

Which is to write. But dang, it sure takes me a long time to get the politics out of my way to do it.

But I got to that point, & now I plan to continue.

That’s my story.

I’m such a cathead.

In solidarity with Hilton workers

Mel Green — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 06:51:53 +0000

Crossposted at
Celtic Diva’s
Blue Oasis

UNITE HERE Local 878 represents workers at several Anchorage hotels including about 200 at the Anchorage Hilton. Hilton workers have been fighting for a fair contract since August 2008, when their last contract expired. But Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex, which took over the Anchorage Hilton in 2006, has been dragging its feet as much as it can, while simultaneously imposing — unilaterally — new demands on the workers, including increased workloads without additional pay.

Alaskans deserve better, and so Anchorage workers

It’s a national pattern with Columbia Sussex. For example, workers at the City Center Sheraton in Baltimore, which Columbia Sussex acquired in 2005, have been without a contract since April 2006. [Ref #1] Pressed by unilateral changes in work conditions, work speedups, management incompetence, and other problems brought on by Columbia Sussex’s policies, Baltimore workers — members of UNITE HERE Local 7 — put the hotel under boycott on November 15, 2007. [Ref #2] It’s still under boycott, [Ref #3] despite reportedly millions of dollars in revenue losses due to the boycott. [Ref #1] According to one piece about the Baltimore boycott,

The owner of Columbia Sussex, Bill Yung, has been slashing at wages, healthcare, and pensions while increasing workloads. He has been quoted as claiming his only interest is “making money,” and has made vows never to sign union contracts. The hospitality industry is the second fastest growing industry in Baltimore, so for the sake of this city it is vital that profiteers like Yung be driven out or forced to give workers good jobs, so that as this city grows, it grows in a positive direction. Yung’s model keeps workers struggling on the edge of poverty, and it is essential that we join together to stop this exploitative model. [Ref #1]

What workers demand: Safe workloads, job security, affordable medical

William J. Yung III, CEO of Columbia Sussex, has been operating much that way for a very long time. In an in-depth article about his disastrous entry into the casino business with Columbia Sussex subsidiary Tropicana Entertainment, Ben Fidler of TheDeal Magazine writes,

By the time Columbia Sussex purchased Aztar [owner of the Tropicana Casino & Resort in Atlantic City, among other properties], the company owned 70 hotels, which Yung had assembled through acquisitions in the ’70s and ’80s. Yung carved out a management style that could be successful in a certain kind of hotel: extracting significant cost savings, typically through extreme job reductions, says one source, who notes, “He cuts the work force down to the bone.” Under Yung, staffers were typically required to work longer hours for less money. “That’s how he distinguished himself in the hotel business,” says the source. [Ref #4]

Good for Yung’s profits, bad for its workers. And bad for the Tropicana in Atlantic City, too. Yung saved roughly $40 million in labor costs by laying off about 1,300 employees at the Tropicana AC, but at the cost of “roaches, bedbugs, dirty floors and overflowing garbage pails” [Ref #4] — not to mention surly, unhappy workers. [Ref #5] Thanks to Yung’s policies, its gaming license under New Jersey law came under threat:

Over and over again, evidence was introduced at the hearings about dirty conditions and poor service at the Tropicana, which has New Jersey’s largest hotel at 2,129 rooms.

A Denver association of environmental health officials, for example, is refusing to pay the last $22,000 of its $97,000 bill, citing 15 pages of complaints ranging from cockroaches and bedbugs to filthy rooms to rude and hostile staff, and even one cleaning woman who ate a guest’s room service meal when he stepped out for a moment. [Ref #5]

The Tropicana AC lost its gaming license, and Yung was ousted from the management and board of Tropicana Entertainment LLC. [Ref #4]

Highest guest scores in the company & 2 more rooms is our reward?!

But he still has Columbia Sussex, and he still has his hotels. And his policies are what workers at the Hilton Anchorage are dealing with. For example, changes in working conditions. In June, shortly after Hilton workers called for a boycott of their employer, Brendan Joel Kelley of the Anchorage Press explained,

Meanwhile, according to Daniel Esparza from HERE, housekeeping employees are being asked to raise the number of rooms they clean in a shift from 15 to 17, and if employees don’t comply, they’re subject to disciplinary action: warnings, suspensions, and firing. “[Columbia Sussex] is going after the ones that are probably least able to defend themselves,” Beltrami says. “The hotel employee restaurant union, they represent a lot of the lower wage earners. So the housekeepers, a lot of them are minority women—most I would say—and they’re really trying to put it to them.” [Ref #6]

As I wrote a few days ago of the change from 15 to 17 rooms a day,

if you’ve ever cleaned a hotel or motel room, you know that’s imposing quite a bit more work for no additional compensation. [Ref #7]

Safe workloads

It’s also a major health concern. In a study based on OSHA records for 87 hotels from 1999 to 2007, UNITE HERE found,

On average, hotel workers experienced an injury rate of 6.4 per 100 workers, meaning that, in each year, more than six percent of the hotel workforce in these hotels suffered a documented workplace injury. Hotel housekeepers, however, faced a significantly greater injury rate of 10.4%, which is 86% greater than the injury rate experienced by non-housekeepers (5.6%). [Ref #8, p. 8]

And the faster they are required to work — in order to meet higher housekeeping quotas imposed by employers — the higher the risk of injury:

In recent years, the workload that hotel companies demand housekeepers perform has increased significantly. Chronic understaffing, coupled with the addition of time-consuming amenities—luxury items like heavy mattresses, fragile coffeepots and in-room exercise equipment—have placed housekeepers at greater risk of injury. In order to complete their room quotas, housekeepers are increasingly forced to skip meals and other breaks—rests necessary to prevent injury. Today, housekeepers’ bodies are at the breaking point. [Ref #8, p. 4]

This is what the Hilton Anchorage management, on orders from Bill Yung and Columbia Sussex, are imposing on Hilton workers.

They don’t care. Not if it’s their profits at stake.

Obviously at least a few Anchorage residents don’t care either, based on many of the reader comments made on the brief story in the Anchorage Daily News about yesterday’s Hotel Workers Rising March from the Sheraton to the Hilton. Here’s a sampler:

Local leaders Vickie and Margie

I’m sure that some people would be happy to even have a job. I’d be bringing in the scabs. Not too hard to train hotel workers anyway, and then you’d have grateful employees.

Problem solved. (Guy_Smiley)

The signs should be expressing gratitude for having a job. (resnared)

Fire ‘em all. Fire every single last one of them. No exceptions: everyone, terminated, there’s the door, you’re outa here.

Then, open up a job-hiring room in each hotel. Care to guess how long it would take to hire new workers, at the same wages as the ones who’ve been fired, with the provision that there’s no union mafia membership?

24 hours, if that. (DaphneFitzroy)

This would have been a magnificant [sic] opportunity for INS to make a sweep for ILLEGALS. (gman2)

Union advocates, you do yourselves and your “cause” no good by these actions. Claiming that “management” demands you put up with “unfair working conditions,” without offering even a shred of evidence just makes you appear silly.

Public sentiment is strongly against unions, and in our country’s current economic condition that sentiment is growing. As we’re all forced to tighten our belts, we don’t want to hear about your “demands.” If you want a better-paying job with more generous benefits, acquire the education and/or training necessary and take the initiative to find one. (CrosleyField)

The only question I have is……….. where was the INS they should have been checking green cards???? (bhessert)

If you don’t like your job…the management, the pay, the requirements, benefits, whatever, find another job. I cannot imagine making a career out of working for a hotel or motel anyway. Those are stepping-stone jobs while you gain a meaningful education on your way to a real job. (lnhbowlus)

In this economy, maybe people should be grateful they have a job at all….you can be replaced…. (FISH4GOODTIMES) [Ref #9, reader comments]

Hilton Under Boycott: what workers are fighting for. Click through to see at a readable size.

Many of the comments were products of what appeared to be universal hostility towards unions regardless of what kind of work its members did, how much they were paid, or whether their complaints had any merit. Many seemed to think that all workers had to do was to quit their jobs, get training, and go to new, better jobs — never mind that most workers had families they couldn’t afford to leave unprovided for as they went off to pursue educations that they couldn’t afford anyway without income. Many commenters made assumptions about the demands they were making without any effort to learn what Hilton workers were in fact demanding — and denying the facts even when other commenters (including me) provided them with documented information.

Working mothers on the march with their kids

And then there’s this comment:

This dispute is over Physical Labor $11 hour to clean 17-20 rooms in an 8 hour shift. (estimate 25 minutes per room to handle the 17 room quota; an experience housekeeper possible 20 minutes to receive more rooms)

Job description: quickly vacuum, change the bedding, clean the bathroom, change out the towels, check the toilet paper dispenser, and complimentary items around the room. Plus pay a union dues each month. (stress occurs to the physical body due to physical labor)

I could understand a higher salary for construction workers who use physical stress & mental stress.

Or women who receive a higher salary for mental stress in a productive business.

As a single parent, I can accomplish more housekeeping work in 30 minutes inside my home, and be paid nothing for my accomplishment.

I understand the “cost of living” is expensive in Alaska.

It would of been appropriate to ask an Employer for a raise to get through difficult times instead of using a Union to miss a day of work. (JulianaSmithAK) [Ref #9, reader comment]

[Update 10/2/09: Interestingly, when I checked this morning, JulianaSmithAK's note had been unnaccountably removed. So were other comments she'd made earlier in the comment stream on this story.]

Which just goes to show that JulianaSmithAK (1) apparently has not considered that even workers for an exploitative company like Columbia Sussex get time off — in fact, a lot of them seem to have more time off than before Yung’s company took over the company, because workers losing hours (and managers doing their work) is another of their complaints; and (2) has no concept of the physical demands actually placed on housekeeping staff in a luxury hotel like the Hilton:

“I have sharp pains when I bend,” says Leticia Ceballos, a hotel housekeeper at the Glendale Hilton near Los Angeles. “Putting the sheets on the beds and cleaning the toilets and bathtubs hurt the most. After the hotel put in the heavier beds and linens, the pain became more severe.”

The problem is getting worse as hotel companies implement room changes like heavier beds and duvets, triple sheets, extra pillows and in-room amenities like coffee makers and treadmills. The evidence strongly implicates increasingly excessive workloads in the rising rates of musculoskeletal disorders such as low back pain and tendonitis among hotel housekeepers. “This is among the highest-stress jobs (on the body) in the service and production industries,” occupational-medicine physician Peter Orris told USA Today. [Ref #10]

But hey, I guess it’s just easier to think about 30 minutes in one’s own house, and pretend that it duplicates the actual working conditions that housekeeping staff at the Hilton or other big hotels work under.

But I’d prefer to go by actual facts. And if those commenters at the Anchorage Daily News don’t give a damn about Hilton workers — I do.

I was proud to march with them yesterday. And I will continue to support their fight for a fair contract. I hope you will too.

References

4/12/09. “Mayday Rally: Support the Sheraton Workers!” (Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse).
11/13/08. “Boycott of Baltimore City Center Sheraton Hotel Launched by UNITE HERE!” by Flint Sparc (Baltimore IMC).
“Union Hotel Guide: Boycott These Properties” (Hotel Workers Rising).
7/18/08. “Yung and the restless” by Ben Fidler (TheDeal Magazine).
12/1/07. “Tropicana faces challenge to undo damage to reputation” by D.J. McAneny (NJ.com).
6/17/09. “Housekeeping – The Hilton’s union employees institute a boycott” by Brendan Joel Kelley (Anchorage Press).
9/28/09. “Hotel Workers Rising March: September 30″ by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
April 2006. Creating Luxury, Enduring Pain: How Hotel Work is Hurting Housekeepers (UNITE HERE). (Available through the Take Action page on the Hotel Workers Rising website.)
10/30/09. “Hotel workers hold downtown rally over wages, benefits” (Anchorage Daily News).
Take Action page (Hotel Workers Rising).

Further background on the Hilton boycott:

9/25/09. “Unity & union-busting” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
9/28/09. “Hotel Workers Rising; Why We Need to Get Involved” by John Aronno (Alaska Commons).

Slideshow of Hotel Workers Rising March, Anchorage, September 30, 2009

Here’s the slide show of all the photos (or the ones I uploaded, anyway) of the march. You can view the slideshow full-screen by tapping the full-screen icon. You can also see the entire set in my Flickr photostream.

True Diversity Dinner video, part 3: Hotel workers, & Elvi's speech

Mel Green — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:16:37 +0000

Janson Jones of Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 has completed work on the third of his True Diversity Dinner videos. (You can view the first two parts here.)

Assembly Member Elvi Gray-Jackson at the True Diversity Dinner

This video includes footage from the protest of Hilton workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 878, outside the Mayor’s Unity Dinner, which was held at the Hilton Anchorage outside down the street from the True Diversity Dinner’s venue at the Snow Goose Restaurant. Janson highlights a couple of reader responses to a brief Anchorage Daily News item about yesterday’s Hotel Workers Rising March (I’ll be posting my photos of it later), in which readers made bigoted comments about hotel workers’ presumed immigration status: yet another sign of how far we have yet to go in truly accepting and appreciating diversity in our community.

What diversity looks like: Hotel workers protesting outside the Mayor's Unity Dinner at the Hilton Anchorage

The balance of the video is Assembly Member Elvi Gray-Jackson’s speech at the dinner. I’ve gotta say again, just as I told her that night: thank you for being the Assembly member from my district who actually represents me. If you missed the True Diversity Dinner, here’s your chance to hear what she had to say.

Janson says there may be as many as four or five additonal videos in store covering the performances and speeches made that night. Stay tuned!

Hotel Workers Rising March: Today!

Mel Green — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:02:54 +0000

The Hotel Workers Rising campaign is a national campaign for decent working conditions and wages for hotel workers.

Unite HERE Local 878 represents workers at several Anchorage hotels including about 200 at the Anchorage Hilton. Hilton workers have been fighting for a fair contract since August 2008, when their last contract expired. But Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex, which took over the Anchorage Hilton in 2006, has been dragging its feet as much as it can, while simultaneously imposing — unilaterally — new demands on the workers, including increased workloads without additional pay.

Hilton Anchorage, a familiar landmark in downtown Anchorage -- now making its mark as a union-buster that cares little about the welfare of the workers who actually provide the hospitality the hotel brags about.

Hotel workers and their supporters will be marching today beginning at 4:30 PM from the Sheraton Anchorage at 6th and Eagle to the Hilton Anchorage. If you can, please join me in turning out today to show your support for these Anchorage workers and their families.

Background on what’s going on at the Hilton can be found in these posts:

9/25/09. “Unity & union-busting” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
9/28/09. “Hotel Workers Rising March: September 30″ by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
9/28/09. “Hotel Workers Rising; Why We Need to Get Involved” by John Aronno (Alaska Commons).

True Diversity Dinner 1 & 2: Video by Janson Jones

Mel Green — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:03:46 +0000

I met Janson as a result of becoming a fan of the fantastic photography (including of the ordinance battle) at his blog, Floridana Alaskiana v2.5.

Crossposted at
Celtic Diva’s
Blue Oasis

Janson Jones of the blog Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 — one of the sponsors of the True Diversity Dinner — has completed part 1 of his video presentation of the event.

Part 1 gives background on the battle over the summer for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance, AO 2009-64, which was passed by the Anchorage Assembly by a vote of 7 to 4 on August 11, but was vetoed on August 17 by Mayor Dan Sullivan; then goes into the decision by several of us bloggers to hold a True Diversity Dinner on September 11 as an alternative for the Mayor’s Unity Dinner, with footage from KTVA Channel 11 and KTUU Channel 2 coverage of the event. Janson also discusses the labor problems at the Anchorage Hilton, where the Mayor’s event was held — the Hilton’s owner, Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex, is refusing to settle a fair contract with its workers, who picketed the hotel the night of the event — which Mayor’s Unity Event participants crossed picket lines to attend.

Janson tells me that Parts 2 & 3 of his presentation are nearly complete, with Part 2 due online within the hour. I’ll update this post with the other two parts when they’re complete.

Thanks, Janson, for your hard work on such a fine presentation.

Janson also has a fine collection of photos from the dinner: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4.

Update: Part 2 now up: a montage of photos from the event. Janson says Part 3 will probably go up tomorrow. Later update: There’s lots more than 3 parts — I’m adding them in separate posts as they get completed.

Here’s a photo of Lifetime Achievement Award winners Vic Fischer, one of the framers of the Alaska Constitution, & Jane Angvik, who helped frame Anchorage’s municipal charter, from the first night of testimony on the Anchorage equal rights ordinance on June 9.

Vic Fischer and Jane Angvik (right) with Arliss Sturgulewski (left) at the June 9, 2009 Anchorage Assembly hearing. All three testified that night in support of the ordinance (as did Chuck O'Connell, in the foreground).

Hilton hotel workers on KTUU

Mel Green — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:46:48 +0000

Here’s KTUU Channel 2′s coverage of Friday’s picketing by Hilton hotel workers of the Anchorage Hilton Hotel. You can also read the text version of the story at KTUU’s website:

9/25/09. “Anchorage Hilton employees again picket their hotel” by Jason Lamb (KTUU Channel 2 News).

The video runs about three minutes & 15 seconds:

Hotel Workers Rising March: September 30

Mel Green — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:32:42 +0000

Members of United HERE Local 878 spent a good part of the day on September 25 in the rain outside the Anchorage Hilton picketing for a fair contract.

Crossposted at
Celtic Diva’s
Blue Oasis

The last thing I was wrote before heading to the True Diversity Dinner last Friday was a lengthy post called Unity & union-busting about what I’d learned since last Wednesday about the struggle by workers at the Anchorage Hilton Hotel for a fair contract. If you haven’t already, please read that post. This is an ongoing issue.

Unite HERE Local 878 represents workers at several Anchorage hotels including about 200 at the Anchorage Hilton. As described in that earlier post, Hilton workers have been trying since August 2008, when their last contract expired, to negotiate for a new contract. But Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex, which took over the Anchorage Hilton in 2006, has been dragging its feet as much as it can, while simultaneously imposing — unilaterally — new demands on the workers, including increased workloads without additional pay. For example, workers who once were previously expected to clean 15 rooms in a day are now expected to clean 17 rooms per day — and if you’ve ever cleaned a hotel or motel room, you know that’s imposing quite a bit more work for no additional compensation. Workers are also being asked by management to pay a far larger share of their health costs.

I knew that Local 878 workers would be picketing outside the Hilton on Friday, so I parked at the Post Office Mall so I could stop by and take photos. (Janson Jones of Floridana Alaskiana v2.5 also got some photos; I’ll try to get his up later too, since he’s given me permission. Phil Munger of Progressive Alaska got photos earlier in the day — you can see one in his Busy Friday Recap post, posted on Saturday.)

Dave, a member of United HERE Local 878. I talked with him for a few minutes about labor issues at the Anchorage Hilton.

I also got a chance to talk with one of the workers, Dave, where he stood outside the entry way with flyers about what union members were fighting about. He mentioned that Columbia Sussex is pulling the same tactics at several other of its hotels, and also pointed out that if Columbia Sussex succeeds in breaking the union at the Anchorage Hilton, there’s a chance that other Anchorage hotels that currently have reasonable working standards and compensation packages will also begin to degrade their treatment of workers.

Even as hotel workers spent hours picketing in the rain outside the Hilton on Friday, the Alaska Republican Party fundraiser and the Mayor’s Unity Dinner were being held inside — a sign of the regard both events’ organizers have for how unfair working conditions affect Anchorage workers and their families. Remember how Mayor Sullivan said that his dinner was supposed to reflect the common values shared by everyone in the Anchorage community — “the importance of family, quality education for our children, and safe, vibrant neighborhoods”? Remember when I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how “Sullivan’s veto [of the Anchorage equal rights ordinance] makes it clear that he only deems some families important — and mine’s not one of them”? Seems the the hotel workers’ families aren’t important to him either.

What diversity looks like. Hotel workers picketing outside the Mayor's Unity Dinner, the keynote event of Anchorage's "Mayor's Diversity Month".

This is unfair treatment that both the Alaska Republican Party and the Mayor’s Unity Dinner upheld by crossing picket lines on Friday. And so with anyone who patronizes the Hilton until the hotel’s management settles a fair contract.

How can you help? First, if you’re traveling, dining, or planning an event, check the list of properties owned by Columbia Sussex and don’t patronize them. In Anchorage, that’s the Anchorage Hilton and the Anchorage Marriott. Second, pass the word on to other people who care about fair workplace treatment. Third, show Local 878 your support.

One great way to show your support is by joining with union members on Wednesday, September 30 for Anchorage’s first Hotel Workers Rising March. They’ll be assembling at the Sheraton Hotel at 4:30 PM and marching from there to the Hilton. I’m going to see about getting off work early that day so I can participate.

As the day's picketing ended, workers prepared to meet in a few days to continue working for a fair contract.

Here’s the other photos I took on Friday of the picketing. You can view this slideshow fullscreen by clicking on the fullscreen icon; you can also see them at my Flickr photostream.

Unity & union-busting

Mel Green — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:12:38 +0000

Crossposted at
Celtic Diva’s
Blue Oasis

A lot more information and commentary has come out since Shannyn Moore pointed out a couple days ago that

This Friday, Mayor Dan Sullivan will cross the picket line at the ONLY boycotted hotel in Alaska for his “unity” dinner. In May, the Hilton workers overwhelmingly voted to place their hotel under boycott because their employer degrades their quality of life. [Ref #1]

As Steve Aufrecht pointed out yesterday,

These employees are among the lowest paid workers. And they represent some of the non-white members of the Anchorage community. [Ref #2]

Before reading Shannyn’s post, I hadn’t known anything about the Hilton boycott. But a Google search when I was writing the article I posted early yesterday morning [Ref #3] gave additional information by way of an article by Brendan Joel Kelley published in the Anchorage Press in June:

The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 878, which represents some 200 Hilton employees, announced that it had overwhelmingly voted to place their hotel under boycott on April 20, when they had a rally outside of the hotel.

HERE says it’s been negotiating with Columbia Sussex, the Kentucky-based company that owns the Hilton, since last summer, to maintain their current contract. According to Senator Bill Wielechowski, who attended the rally, Columbia Sussex has offered the workers a 10 cent an hour wage increase, but wanted the employees to pick up a significant portion of their health insurance costs, which amounts to about two weeks of a year’s pay. “It’s really a step backwards,” Wielechowski says. “It’s going to affect the lives of a thousand Alaskan families here in Anchorage, so it’s a big deal. They’re asking them to do more work for less pay, essentially. It doesn’t benefit anyone here in Alaska for an Outside company to come in and do that.” [Ref #4]

Columbia Sussex became owner of the Anchorage Hilton in December 2006, and from every evidence things have gone downhill for the hotel’s workers ever since:

Traditionally, the three large hotels in town—the Captain Cook, the Sheraton and the Hilton—have set the industry standard when it comes to negotiating contracts with unions. The Captain Cook’s local owners, for example, signed what workers considered a fair contract with the union. But the purchase of the Hilton by Columbia Sussex has threatened that dynamic. [Ref #4]

More news came yesterday by way of a piece in Alaska Dispatch by Barb Angaiak, president of NEA-Alaska. The NEA in its name stands for National Education Association: NEA-Alaska is the state’s largest union, representing 13,000 teachers and education support professionals throughout the state. Angaiak’s article announced NEA-Alaska’s decision to cancel all its business with the Anchorage Hilton — which it had previously been a favored venue for many NEA-Alaska events — due to Columbia Sussex’s steadfast refusal to deal in good faith in negotiating a fair contract with its employees.

The Alaska chapter of the National Education Association has been monitoring the lack of progress in contract negotiations between the Anchorage Hilton Hotel and its bellmen, housekeepers, food servers, and other employee groups for some months. These hardworking Alaskans, members of Unite HERE Local 878, have been attempting to bargain a new contract for more than a year, and hotel management shows no signs that it is willing to settle.

This is part of a national pattern of union-breaking tactics and unfair treatment of employees by the Columbia Sussex Corporation. As a result, the NEA-Alaska Board of Directors met last weekend and voted to cancel its multi-year contract with the Hilton. The board severed all business ties with the hotel, despite the financial cost to our 13,000 members.

NEA-Alaska met with the Hilton management in May and August, both times offering our services as mediators to help the two sides achieve a reasonable settlement. Alaska staff returned from attending the last face-to-face negotiating session stating it has become clear that these Outside hotel managers have no interest in settling the dispute with their Alaskan employees. [Ref #5; emphasis added]

As stated in its press release announcing the severance of its relationship with the Anchorage Hilton, NEA-Alaska explained:

The hotel’s owners, Columbia Sussex, continue to delay progress in the bargaining and instead unilaterally imposed new conditions of employment, including increased workloads with no additional pay and a demand that workers pay a larger share of health care costs. [Ref #6]

You can see other evidence of NEA-Alaska’s concern and efforts to assist Unite HERE Local 878 members in gaining a fair contract at NEA-Alaska’s website. [Refs #7–12] In an August 24 letter to the Anchorage Hilton’s general manager Eric Kiddle, which informed him of NEA’s cancellation of reservations for two large events the union had planned to hold at the hotel, Barb Angaiak wrote,

Our view of the Hilton has changed substantially over the last several months. Hilton began negotiating a successor agreement between service employees and management over a year ago, without success or much progress. In the process, the efforts of hardworking, dedicated and loyal employees of the hotel have been disregarded by new management, which appears focused on cost-cutting. The apparent lack of interest in developing a contract that provides employees fair treatment, wages, benefits and working conditions suggests an agenda that is new to Anchorage and our state’s hotel industry. We note that the major hoteliers in the city have reached agreement with HERE, and the terms do not impose the kinds of concessions Columbia Sussex seeks from employees. The requested concessions are, to our knowledge, the only reason that an agreement has not been reached. [Ref #11]

NEA-Alaska is asking all its members not to use any services at the Anchorage Hilton until the hotel settles a fair contract. [Ref #5] It has also posted a list at its website of all properties owned nationwide by Columbia Sussex [Ref #12] — which includes also the Anchorage Marriot — and is urging all Alaskans to honor the boycott by avoiding all those properties when traveling or dining out. [Ref #5]

Meanwhile — the Mayor’s Unity Dinner is being held at the Hilton tonight. As reported late last night by Kyle Hopkins at the Anchorage Daily News,

The union of roughly 1,000 Anchorage hotel and restaurant workers this month asked new Mayor Dan Sullivan to move the dinner to another venue.

Sullivan declined, and the union, which is seeking a better offer on wages and benefits from the hotel’s Kentucky-based owner, now plans to protest the event.

“The mayor is not honoring the wishes of the diverse workforce that works in this hotel,” said Amarjeet Chhabra, spokeswoman for Unite Here Local 878. The union represents about 200 Hilton workers, she said.

Sullivan spokeswoman Sarah Erkmann said it would have been impossible to move the dinner on just days’ notice. The city had booked the Hilton because other hotels like the Sheraton and Captain Cook weren’t available, she said. [Ref #12]

But… I’ve got to wonder. Was the Mayor’s office truly not aware of a serious labor issue that had been going on for more than a year, such that it wasn’t until early this month that they put any thought to it, and only after the hotel workers asked? Other organizations which have pulled out from holding events at the Anchorage Hilton include the Alaska Federation of Filipino Americans — many of the Hilton’s workers are of Filipino descent — the NAACP, and the Alaska Nurses Association. [Ref #12] Did none of the people planning for the event, which regardless of its name change is still part of Mayor’s Diversity Month, take account of how the Hilton was screwing over its workers — workers who are as much at the heart of Anchorage’s diversity as any of the rest of us?

And golly gee whiz — is it mere coincidence that another event was held at the Anchorage Hilton starting at noon today was an Alaska Republican Party fundraiser featuring the same keynote speaker, Lynn Swann, who is also keynoting the Mayor’s event? Lynn Swann, the former Hall of Fame football player and former Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, who, according to Erkmann, waived his speaking fee for the Mayor’s dinner — the Alaska Republican Party is paying for his visit.

Huh. Interesting. Looks a lot to me an awful lot as if arrangements for the Mayor’s Unity Dinner simply piggybacked off the arrangements for the Alaska Republican fundraiser.

The whole situation also makes me very curious to know what relationships might exist between Mayor Sullivan, the Alaska Republican Party, and the management and shareholders of Columbia Sussex. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that union-busting could be seen as a shared Republican value. Especially evident now with the union-busting efforts being aimed at the city’s police, fire, and electrical unions even as we speak.

As Shannyn Moore wrote two days ago,

Hmmm…unity? What is unifying about a former Pittsburgh Steeler and Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate, with a $40,000 speaker fee? Oh, you meant partisan…easy mistake. It makes more sense that you’re holding it at a union-busting hotel now. Something about all those “diverse” looking hotel workers not being paid a living wage must really “unify” your party. [Ref #1]

This post might be updated later with photos of the union pickets outside the Hilton, which I hope to stop by on my way to the True Diversity Dinner.

Update 9/26/09, 3:40 AM: Here’s photos I took of the picketing before I went to the True Diversity Dinner. I also talked with Dave, one of the workers who was picketing. I’ll be writing more about this issue. But right now, I think I’ll go to bed.

References

9/23/09. “Is Dan Sullivan Running For Senate?” by Shannyn Moore (Just a Girl from Homer; crossposted at The Mudflats and Alaska Report).
9/24/09. “Sullivan’s Unity Speaker Swan Paid Enough for One Muni Job” by Steve Aufrecht (What Do I Know?)
9/24/09. “True Diversity v. fake unity” by Melissa S. Green (Henkimaa).
6/17/09. “Housekeeping – The Hilton’s union employees institute a boycott” by Brendan Joel Kelley (Anchorage Press).
9/24/09. “NEA-Alaska cancels Hilton contract” by Barb Angaiak (Alaska Dispatch).
9/25/09. “State’s Largest Union Stands Behind Hilton Worker: 13,000-member NEA-Alaska Axes Contract with Hilton” (press release). NEA-Alaska.
May 2009. “Bringing pressure to bear on behalf of Hilton Hotel workers” by Barb Angaiak (NEA-Alaska).
May 2009. “A Message from the President: Bringing pressure to bear on behalf of Hilton Hotel workers” by Barb Angaiak, NEA-AKtivist 36(9): 2.
7/28/09. “Local 878 Update” by Jessica Lawson of UNITE HERE Local 878 (NEA-Alaska).
8/24/09. “Alaska Educators Agree to Stand with Anchorage Hotel Workers.” Press release from NEA-Alaska.
8/24/09. Letter from Barb Angaiak, President of NEA-Alaska, to Eric Kiddle, General Manager, Anchorage Hilton Hotel.
9/25/09. “Columbia Sussex Hotel Properties.” NEA-Alaska. A full list of properties owned by Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex. Anchorage properties include the Anchorage Hilton Hotel and the Anchorage Marriot.
8/24/09. “Unions, others mount protest of mayor’s ‘unity’ dinner — HILTON: Hotel workers locked in labor dispute have asked for boycott” by Kyle Hopkins (Anchorage Daily News).

True Diversity v. fake unity

Mel Green — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 08:44:45 +0000

Update 1:10 AM: Just after posting this, I learned of the death of Mayor Dan Sullivan’s father, former Mayor George Sullivan. Political differences notwithstanding, I suffered the loss of my own father last May, & know the sorrow that can bring. My condolences to Mayor Sullivan and to the entire Sullivan family.

As we come up on Friday, when the True Diversity Dinner sponsored by a few of us bloggers will be held at the Snow Goose at the same time as the Mayor’s Unity Dinner at the Hilton, Shannyn Moore provides some additional context for the dinners in a post she wrote yesterday, “Is Dan Sullivan Running For Senate?” (crossposted at The Mudflats). [Ref #1]

Dan Sullivan at his first Assembly meeting as Mayor of Anchorage on July 7

Shannyn speculates that by means of the political maneuvering associated with his actions as mayor & with the tactics of his cronies — such as Assembly Member Bill Starr — that Mayor Dan Sullivan might be positioning himself for an eventual run for U.S. Senate against Senator (and former Mayor) Mark Begich. Among the tactics at work are attempting to blame the Municipality’s current fiscal problems on Begich, while ignoring the huge deficit that Begich inherited from our prior mayor, George Wuerch (who, coincidentally or not, shared Sullivan’s brand of antigay conservativism) and the current attempt to invalidate the Municipality’s contracts with the IBEW and the police union, [Ref #2] with the help of (1) an opinion by an attorney who has admitted to having no expertise in employment or labor union law and (2) a widely distributed email from Bill Starr, backed by fellow conservative Assembly Member and Sullivan crony Dan Coffey, alleging Mayor Begich withheld financial information from the the Assembly that, had they known it, would have resulted in the contracts not being agreed to in the first place.

Well, we’ll see the claims and counterclaims played out in the press — and in the blogs which, all too often nowadays, are better sources than the dailies and broadcast news for the real nuts and bolts of these things. We’ll see if the Anchorage Daily News reminds us, as Shannyn already has, about the phone call Dan Coffey’s butt accidentally made to Allan Tesche, which led to a recording of a conversation between Coffey and Starr involving some highly questionable campaign financing practices (and a lot of trash talk about the police union) — because that kind of corruption is also part of the context.

But what’s this got to do with True Diversity Dinner and the Mayor’s Unity Dinner? (Besides, that is, the fact that Shannyn Moore will be the keynote speaker at the True Diversity Dinner.)

This: that Mayor Sullivan’s dinner will be held at the only hotel in Anchorage under boycott by workers because of bad faith negotiating by Columbia Sussex, the Hilton’s owners. I hadn’t known about this situation before, & thank Shannyn for providing that context. I got additional information through an article penned in June by Brendan Joel Kelley of the Anchorage Press,[Ref #3] while I was preoccupied with the battle for the Anchorage equal rights ordinance. The mayor’s choice of venue goes hand-in-hand with the union-busting tactics being used against IBEW and the police union (and one must also hasten to wonder about Mayor Sullivan’s valuation of the city’s other first responders in the Anchorage Fire Department, about which Brendan Joel Kelley has also written [Ref #4]).

Mayor Sullivan appears to care as little about fair terms for Anchorage police, fire, electrical, and hotel workers as he does about LGBT workers. Are unionbusting, bad faith bargaining, and unilateral attempts to get out of contracts part of the Mayor’s platform of diversity — or rather, er, unity? As for me, I think a strong diverse workforce is rather essential to both, and unions are part of that.

Shannyn also points out the partisan credentials of the Mayor’s keynote speaker, former Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann, who will also be getting a hefty fee for headlining a Republican fundraiser while he’s in town. “Unity”? Looks more like Republican party-building to me.

True Diversity Dinner program

Meanwhile, planning for the True Diversity Dinner proceeds — and we’re almost there! Our speaker line-up includes Rev. Marquita Pierre, Diane Benson, Elvi Gray-Jackson, Shannyn Moore, and more. We’ll also have performances by Yup’ik dancers and singer Steven Alvarez, plus a dance afterwards. We’re gonna have a great time!

Plea$e help!

But here’s time for a plea for help: the $10 being charged for tickets to the dinner only begins to cover the dinner’s cost; much of the cost has been coming out of our pockets. Any help you can give will be appreciated — just go to the True Diversity Dinner web page and use the handy Donate button.

References

9/23/09. “Is Dan Sullivan Running For Senate?” by Shannyn Moore (Just a Girl from Homer; crossposted at The Mudflats).
9/23/09. “City labor contracts invalid, attorney says” by Don Hunter (Anchorage Daily News).
6/17/09. “Housekeeping – The Hilton’s union employees institute a boycott” by Brendan Joel Kelley (Anchorage Press).
8/19/09. “AFD gets its axe handed to it” by Brendan Joel Kelley (Anchorage Press). See also the Anchorage firefighters’ blog AFD Status about rolling closures instituted by the Sullivan Administration and other current issues affecting the Anchorage Fire Department’s ability to effectively serve the people of Anchorage.

[Crossposted at Celtic Diva's Blue Oasis]