Picketers could be in for a long-drawn-out dispute over insurance benefits for hotel workers. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda |
I’M
REFERRING TO the people who are part of the UNITE HERE Local 1, the union the
represents hotel workers at various establishments around Chicago.
They’re
the ones who have been picketing for the past 10 days outside all of the upper-crust
hotels, trying to make a nuisance of themselves in hopes that they’ll shame the
hotel owners into meeting their demands.
Yet
I get a sense from the complaints I have been reading in recent days that most
people who stay at those hotels are going to be merely appalled by whatever
amenities are being tampered with as a result of the striking workers.
Heaven
forbid that some hotel patron who was too lazy to go outside missed a meal
because they couldn’t get room service. Or that someone had to wait a little
while longer while checking in to their hotel because the short-staffed
businesses are behind on having their rooms ready for them.
YOU’D
THINK HOTEL management would see the activity of the past week-and-a-half and
come to the realization that their staffs are essential parts of being able to
provide the quality of service they think they offer – and ought to be offering
for the absurd rates they often charge for a room there.
Instead,
they’re more than willing to try to shift blame to those workers for not doing
work.
Which
may be appropriate since we’re now in an Age of Trump, with a president who
made his personal fortune by building all those allegedly-upscale hotels that egotistically
bear his name.
I don't doubt that Donald Trump himself views the staffs of all his Trump Hotels
as being totally-replaceable minions who ought to be grateful to wear work
uniforms bearing the “T” (for Trump) and think their affiliation (no matter how
superficial) with his name is compensation enough for their grueling labor.
I
FULLY EXPECT it’s just a matter of time before the public turns on those hotel
workers who are now making a racket outside the so-called elite hotels.
Just
as how whenever the issue of the minimum wage and the notion of raising it to
$15 per hour comes up, some people are quick to go on rants about the unmitigated
gall those people have thinking their labor ought to be compensated appropriately.
We’ll
also hear arguments made about how keeping employee wages and other compensation
is absolutely essential to maintaining the current status of the economy. Almost
as though they think underpaying the hired help is essential to preserving the “American
Way” of life.
Personally,
I’ve always felt companies that manage to keep their employees satisfied are
the ones that have the most productive workforces – and often have people
wanting to work for them.
NO
COMPANY THAT thinks its workers ought to be thankful anybody bothers to employ
them in any capacity is going to achieve much in the way of success. Of course,
their management later will “blame the workers” for not properly producing.
What if Trump workers tried striking? |
Part
of the reason I can sympathize with these hotel workers is because this particular
strike isn’t about salaries (although I’m sure they wouldn’t object to a raise).
It’s about health insurance – as in many of these hotel companies like to lay
off staff during the winter months, which results in them losing health
coverage.
You’d
think that management would want to have a healthy workforce. At the very
least, they wouldn’t want to encourage concepts that their workers could be carrying
something that could be passed on to their customers.
And
in the end, it’s the notion of serving those customers properly that is the reason
those hotels are in business to begin with. Particularly at a place like the
Palmer House hotel downtown – where the absolute cheapest room one can get
there is $169 per night. Because if one is just looking for a night’s sleep that
isn’t on a park bench, there’s always Motel 6.
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