On the picket line

Religious leaders support S.F. hotel workers

On Dec. 8 more than 100 religious leaders, community members and hotel workers joined in an interfaith candlelight service in San Francisco on the eighth night of the Jewish Festival of Lights or Hanukkah. Carrying eight huge candles and a banner that read, “Shine a light on economic justice for 12,000 hotel workers,” the demonstrators walked around Union Square before delivering a huge “holiday card” to Hyatt hotel’s management. Though the hotel workers, who are represented by UNITE-HERE Local 2, have been working without a contract since August 2009, they have challenged the megabucks hotel chains with a series of rolling strikes for the last 16 months. While owners like Hyatt, Hilton and Blackstone brag about lush profits, they’re asking the already underpaid, overworked hotel staffers to make do with lower wages, speedups and unsafe working conditions. Another protest is planned for Dec. 16. In addition to the union, the Progressive Jewish Alliance and Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice organized the protest.

National actions demand unemployment benefits

From the steps of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to the sidewalks of St. Louis, jobless workers, union members and community activists demanded an extension of unemployment benefits on Dec. 7. The AFL-CIO called the coordinated Day of Action, which included both online and picket line activities, to defend the right of the 2 million unemployed to receive extended benefits. In St. Louis, for example, dozens of protesters formed a soup line, reminiscent of those of the 1930s, to dramatize what will happen if unemployment insurance is not continued. As jobless member of the Painters union (IUPAT) Lloyd Schultz said, “Unemployment insurance is the only thing keeping many of us with a roof over our heads and food on the table this winter.” (blog.aflcio.org, Dec. 8)

Global call for action to help locked-out Iowa workers

The AFL-CIO has joined with two unions outside the U.S. — the International Union of Foodworkers and the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine and General Workers’ Union — in a global call to action against French-based Roquette Frères. About 240 workers, members of the Bakery Workers and Grain Millers union Local 48G, have been locked out of their jobs for more than two months at Roquette’s corn milling plant in Keokuk, Iowa. The three federations are asking the U.N. Global Compact to hold Roquette, which signed the compact in 2009, accountable for failing to comply with the right to collective bargaining and freedom of association. Roquette locked out the workers after they rejected proposals that would cut wages, eliminate or reduce benefits, and undermine collective bargaining for critical employment issues. (blog.aflcio.org, Dec. 9)

Protesters confront Chase at 100 branches

In commemoration of Human Rights Day, Dec. 9, labor union members, ministers and community activists supporting tobacco workers and victims of fraudulent home foreclosures protested at 100 Chase Bank branches from coast to coast. Handing out fliers to bank customers and passersby during the lunch hour, the protesters, organized by the United Auto Workers and People Before Banks, called on JPMorganChase to institute a one-year moratorium on home foreclosures and to use its influence, as lead banker for R. J. Reynolds, to compel the tobacco giant to improve working and living conditions in the tobacco fields and farm labor camps. The flyer, entitled “Chase Bank: What’s Gone Wrong? Enough Is Enough,” cited Wall Street Journal reports that Chase is number one in home foreclosures in the U.S. The UAW first launched the struggle against Chase at the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in June and is continuing the campaign for social and economic justice.

Davis, a member of the National Writers Union, UAW Local 1981, participated in the leafleting in New York City.