{"article":{"id":180360,"heading":"VIDEO: Hotel Workers Protest","author":"A","created":"2006-09-30 04:49:41","modified":"2006-10-02 20:52:57","last_modified":"Tue, 03 Oct 2006 04:52:57","article":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<?xml encoding=\"UTF-8\"><html><body><p>This was a staged event. Organizers worked with the LAPD. The march was under permit. The sit-downs were planned in advance and coordinated with LAPD. People in the sit-down complied with police orders to stand up and be cuffed. By 8:30 pm it was all over and the street was reopened. <br>  <br> <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":"","link":"","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"video\/quicktime","summary":"This reporter saw at least three bus loads of people arrested.","numcomment":6,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2006\/09\/hotelworkers-2.mov","filesize":"4.3 mebibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2006\/09\/180360.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":180530,"heading":"No surprise","article":"Does anybody need additional evidence that mainstream labor is hopelessly sold out? What a disgrace, especially coming from LA's &quot;militant&quot; union, the same union that opposed the May 1st strike. But don't blame the hotel workers, blame their corrupt leaders, like Maria Durazo, and that great pretender, the Mayor of LA.\r\n\r\nJohn Earl","author":"John Earl","parent_id":180360,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-10-01 02:49:55","modified":"2006-10-01 02:49:55","fileurl":""},{"id":180538,"heading":"reply","article":"it is an insult to the movement. it was just a waste of time. ","author":"V","parent_id":180360,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-10-01 04:42:01","modified":"2006-10-01 04:42:01","fileurl":""},{"id":180608,"heading":"Hotels","article":"It's too bad that the media coverage tended to favor the hotel management.  I guess they were trying to make it media-friendly, but the media wasn't friendly.\r\n\r\nThese corporate chain hotels are pretty high up on the ladder of cleaning jobs.  Their daily rates are high, even with the nice furnishings they have.  They have profit margins that motels and apartments don't have.  (Do the math - renting a luxury condo for $2,000 a month works out to $67 a day.  An equivalent hotel room would be $300 a day.)\r\n\r\nAn outfit like Merry Maids charges $80 an hour (and starts their workers at or near minimum wage!).  An indie should be charging around $20 to $40 an hour.\r\n\r\nLuxury hotels have the ability to pay excellent wages.  I don't know what the current wages are, but I would guess the older workers probably do okay (like 10 to 15 an hour), and the newer ones get paid near minimum wage (unless they have a living wage contract).\r\n\r\nIn the globalized economy, hotels have increased value.  Travel is more important to business than before, and new forms of temporary housing, like the executive suite and the corporate apartment, have emerged.  In big, global regions like Los Angeles, hotels are going to be even more valuable for their proximity to business, import\/export warehouses, and information-age businesses.  \r\n\r\nNo matter how well-connected you are by the Internet, at some point, you have to deal with people and things.  If you're in Denver, your partner is in Taipei, and the products enter [or leave] the US at Long Beach, you will eventually need to go to Long Beach.  If your Taipei associate goes there at the same time, the value of the trip increases a lot.  The fact that, with telecommunications, the American can be in Denver, and conduct business with Taipei, makes hotels even more valuable, because more businesses are likely to locate far away from the ports, increasing overall business volume.  (Think about how the car enabled people to live away from cities, and how the train made it possible to locate cities away from rivers.  Each of these changes caused the big cities to get bigger.)\r\n\r\nThe liberal, American, way is simple: workers in a business  experiencing increased profits should share in those gains.  Otherwise, you're going to create extreme class divisions.  In a hotel, the class divide is going to be between not only the workers and managers, but between the workers and guests.  If the division grows (due to wages not rising) the profitable division would need to be maintained with different forms of &quot;security&quot;, contracted out to the Wackenhuts and Pinkertons of the world.\r\n\r\nIf reality has any predictive value, it would lead to the creation of a city-within-a-city, like in the 3rd world, where the tourist zones are policed against &quot;terrorists&quot; who would, correctly, see the hotel zone as the domain of the oppressors.  Special &quot;red light districts&quot; would be developed to cater to the criminal needs of wealthy travellers.  (Well, this already exists to some degree here, but if class divisions increase, the borders will become less permeable.)","author":"U","parent_id":180360,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-10-01 20:47:57","modified":"2006-10-01 20:47:57","fileurl":""},{"id":180611,"heading":"The Real Cancun","article":"The linked article is about the exploitative conditions in Cancun.","author":"U","parent_id":180360,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-10-01 21:21:53","modified":"2006-10-01 21:21:53","fileurl":""},{"id":180779,"heading":"The workers real power is to Strike","article":"The CD actions are in lieu of a strike that the union bosses are paid off not to approve.\r\n\r\nThe only power workers have is the power to strike. Only a militant wildcat strike that holds the line and prevents any scabs from crossing is the way to win.  Any thing less is the road to defeat.  If they do not have the power and will to strike and shutdown all the hotels then they are wasting their time. This is the lesson the rank and file union members of UFCW Local 1442 learned the hard way.  Ask them about it. Don't make the same mistake.\r\n\r\nThe workers must be able to shutdown the hotel 24\/7 and prevent them from opening or they have no real power. If you cannot stop the scabs you cannot win a strike. The corporations will bus in scabs from out of state and break the strike. They will wait you out. They have more money than any strike fund and you will lose.  And you must strike every hotel or they will lockout the workers at the other hotels and then you are screwed. \r\n\r\nSo stop messing around get together with the airport taxi drivers, the truckers and organize a coordinated strike. Shutdown the hotels and the airport. Force them to comply with your demands.  Anything else is a waste of time.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n","author":"Strike to win","parent_id":180360,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2006-10-02 20:52:57","modified":"2006-10-03 08:02:11","fileurl":""}]}