NoVa News | HEI Workers Rising

February 26, 2009

Workers at the Sheraton Crystal City in Arlington VA delegated HEI management today – going public with a demand that the company respect their desire for a majority sign-up agreement. Student activists from Brown, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and U Penn joined the workers, along with local community leaders. Workers presented the general manager, Pradeep Bobba, with a demand for a fair and democratic process for deciding whether to form a union, without management interference.

HEI Hotels & Resorts co-owns the Sheraton Crystal City with the real estate wing of Prudential Financial, the giant insurance and financial services company. Like HEI employees elsewhere, workers at this hotel struggle under difficult working conditions. Room cleaners commonly clean 18 rooms or more each day, and at times have been required to clean as many as 32 rooms a day.

Felipe Alvare, a dishwasher at the Sheraton, participated in today’s delegation. He talked afterward about what today’s action meant to him:

“I’ve worked at this hotel for 14 years. My co-workers and I work hard. We don’t get paid a lot -- $9.50 is not a lot to live on. Often I am the only dishwasher in the entire hotel, and the only person in charge of cleaning the kitchen. We just want HEI to treat us fairly – starting with some respect. That’s the message we delivered today.”

The same day as the delegation, Ferdi Lazo (a hotel engineer and leader in today’s action) was suspended indefinitely by HEI. “They said it was because I don’t work fast enough. But I’ve worked fast enough for this hotel for the last 20 years.”

HEI workers at the Sheraton Crystal City are joining in the struggle for justice with workers at HEI’s Le Meridien in San Francisco and HEI’s Hilton in Long Beach CA. On Tuesday, workers from the Le Meridien called for a boycott of their hotel, and led a demonstration of 700 supporters through downtown San Francisco.

Students Ask Penn to Flex Muscle in Unionization Debate
In economic and business classes across campus, students learn about labor as an abstraction, as a commodity, as something to be traded on the market. But for Peter Ho and three other hotel workers who spoke last week with a group of students, faculty and staff, labor is deeply personal.
Non-union Hotel Pressed on Organizing Effort
The union representing most hotel workers in San Francisco is attempting to put economic pressure on two non-union hotels that have not agreed to accommodate an organizing effort.
HEI Hotels and Resorts Reinstates Fired Union Leader After Year-Long Worker and Student Campaign
HEI Hotels and Resorts agreed to return fired Union leader Ferdi Lazo to work at the Sheraton Crystal City hotel.
In an Uncertain Market, Hotels May Be Ripe Buys
A $200 million resort hotel does not exactly resemble a suburban home. But scratch the surface of the sales market for each property category, and they look remarkably similar today...
News analysis | Union propels HEI protests
The sit-in held by Yale’s Undergraduate Organizing Committee last month was just one of a dozen nationwide efforts to protest university investments in a hotel company. But all of the campaigns, though led by students, originated from the same place: a union, UNITE HERE...
Workers Call for Boycott of HEI-owned Embassy Suites in Irvine
Workers from the HEI-owned Embassy Suites hotel in Irvine announced August 31, 2010, they are calling for a boycott of their employer. Other boycotted HEI properties include the Hilton Long Beach, Sheraton Crystal City and Le Meridien in San Francisco. Under boycott, workers request that potential customers not eat, sleep or meet at the HEI-owned hotels.
Present letter to Jenkins' office calling for divestment from HEI Hotels
Socially conscious students gathered on the steps of the Main Building Thursday afternoon to deliver a personal letter to University President Fr. John Jenkins demanding that the University divest its funds from HEI Hotels and Resorts...
Student Labor Activists Take on Hotel Chain for Practices
Elizabeth Martinez has worked at the Hilton in Long Beach, Calif., for 11 years. She said her job used to be "really a pleasure," but when HEI Hotels and Resorts bought the hotel four years ago, they laid off many workers and stretched the remaining staff thin. Now workers scramble to complete the work of multiple people, she said, sometimes working unpaid during their lunch breaks so they can finish on time. "I'm working by myself a lot of times," said Martinez, who waits tables at the hotel restaurant for minimum wage. "I'm basically running to get the job done."

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