Hyatts Face Protests After Layoffs in Boston Area
by Steven GreenhouseLink to article
This is an excerpt from the New York Times, published Sept. 24, 2009. Click on link to read entire article.
“Hyatt Hotels is facing a wave of anger and protests as a result of its decision to lay off 98 members of its housekeeping staff at three Boston area hotels and replace them with lower paid workers.
Upset by the layoffs, Gov. Deval Patrick of Massachusetts has called on state employees to boycott Hyatt hotels unless the company reinstates the workers.
In a letter sent Wednesday to Hyatt’s chief executive, Mr. Patrick called what happened “the worst nightmare of every worker in today’s weak economy.”
He added, “Surely there is some way to retain the jobs for your housekeeping staff, as other hotels have done, and to work with them to help the company meet its current challenges, rather than tossing them out unceremoniously to fend for themselves while the people they trained take their jobs at barely livable wages.”
The housekeepers generally earned $14 to $16 an hour with health benefits, while their replacements, union and Hyatt officials say, are being paid around $8 an hour without health benefits. Hyatt said it was “very disappointed” by Mr. Patrick’s boycott threat, saying it endangers the jobs of 600 Hyatt employees in the Boston area. …”
Tags: Boston hotel workers, boycott Hiatt, Hyatt housekeepers, Hyatt layoffs
September 25th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
The only reason that they can even find anybody to take these ridiculously underpaid jobs are because Hospitality Solutions is importing cheap unqualified labor from third world countries using the H-2B visa. They are going to pack these people into apartments, many of them out of code, and they are going to stick the people of the Commonwealth with the cost of Health Insurance under the new $40 million increase in the “legal immigrants” pool.
This whole thing is a disgrace, and it has been enabled by Kennedy, Capuano, and all of the other liberals that think it is great to bring in cheap labor and ruin job opportunities for native american workers.
September 28th, 2009 at 6:39 am
Right or wrong, Hyatt has attempted to make concessions for the people it let go. Late on Friday Sept. 25 Hyatt announced that all 98 housekeepers would be offered employment with a service agency: http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/articles.aspx?ArticleId=1938