On Tuesday, February 24 – over 700 hotel workers and community members marched through downtown San Francisco to the HEI Le Meridien Hotel to call on visitors to boycott the property.
Workers are seeking respect for their choice to decide whether to have union representation without management interference. Despite their repeated appeals to management, they’re voices are still not heard. As a result, workers have signed a petition calling on guests to stop using their hotel.
Even in the midst of the current economic downturn, Le Meridien hotel owner: HEI Hotels & Resorts – still remains one of the country’s fastest growing hotel owners. At the same time, over 180 hospitality workers and their families in this San Francisco hotel face unfair layoffs, unaffordable healthcare, and a lack of respect on the job.
“We want the same opportunities as other hotel workers in San Francisco. If it’s good enough for workers at other hotels, why not for us? We’ve given years of service to these hotels. We just want respect.” Said Peter Ho, a lobby porter who has worked at the Le Meridien for 19 years.
David Chiu, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and endorser of the boycott also commented on the situation, “Hotel workers and the hotel industry are critical to our city’s economy, and we ask the hotel owners to respect the workers’ choice to organize freely as other San Francisco hotel companies already do.”
In the days following the declaration of the boycott, dozens of local hotel customers – worth over half a million dollars in annual hotel and event business - have already pledged to honor the boycott.
