Restaurant, Hotel, and Building Service Workers I.U. 640

This page displays *all* news items from Restaurant, Hotel, and Building Service Workers Industrial Union 640.

For an overview of the IU 640's history and contact information, please visit our homepage.

Handyfat Workers Organize

Posted Fri, 02/03/2006 - 2:17am by x344543

Industrial Worker - February 2006

A majority of the 15 workers at Handyfat Trading, Inc., a food wholesaler in Brooklyn that serves the Chinese food industry, have joined the IWW, and will have an NLRB election on Jan. 17. The boss has circulated a letter to Spanish-speaking warehouse workers warning that they will be replaced if they vote union and try to “interfere” with how he runs the business.

The New York IWW’s organizing in the food and warehouse industries led to an article in the Jan. 4 New York Sun, which quoted a New York City Central Labor Council official saying they are following IWW organizing closely.

“If they are now declaring themselves to have a better way to organize, I hope they’re right,” said public policy director Ed Ott. “The labor movement needs new ideas.”

Occupied Hotel in Argentina Needs Help!

Posted Thu, 11/10/2005 - 2:25pm by x344543
http://www.petitiononline.com/bauen/petition.html
 
To:  The President of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner

The struggle of Argentinian workers to recover factories and companies abandoned by their owners has become an inspiring model worldwide, and an important symbol that another world is possible. The Bauen Hotel is a concrete example. Its future and significance were recently recognized by the government of Venezuela, with an agreement signed with the Ministry of Tourism and the National Ministry of Popular Economy to work together in the development of a cooperative tourism venture. At the Bauen Hotel there are 120 men and women who every day demonstrate how to build self-managed alternatives that create jobs, dignity and justice where neoliberalism has resulted in devastating failure.

Following a fraudulent bankruptcy and after exhausting all legal paths for a year and a half, they decided to take their futures into their own hands and they built what we can see today: a fully functioning hotel with a restaurant, bookstore and cultural galleries, along with spaces that they lend to social organizations for meetings, conferences and assemblies. If you want to demonstrate your pride in a symbol of the movement right in the centre of Buenos Aires, all you have to do is let the Bauen Hotel continue to operate the way its workers, with efficiency and solidarity, have planned it.

Montreal Hotel Workers Win Through Democracy

Posted Wed, 11/02/2005 - 4:32am by x344543

By Friends of NEFAC, MONTREAL - Industrial Worker, October 2005

The Confederation des Syndicats Nationaux has reached agreements at 18 Montreal hotels, and is now negotiating for similar agreements at other CSN-represented hotels across the province.

The first weeks of July were a time of intense mobilisation for some 4,000 hotel workers in Montreal. Contracts ended June 30 and workers responded with a week of disruption that began with informational picket lines during extended lunch breaks and culminated July 8 with a 24-hour strike.  Sheraton settled with the union an hour before its 400 workers joined the strike; the Hilton reached an identical agreement the next day, while the Omni responded by locking out its 200 workers for nine weeks.

On July 12 a mass meeting set July 15 as the deadline to reach agreements with the remaining hotels. In the end, only the workers at the Plaza Metro Center had to go on strike to force an agreement matching the agreements with the Sheraton and Hilton.

The agreement involves wage increases of 11 percent over three years and abolishes the "wage ladder." After 30 days, everyone working the same job gets the same pay, promoting equality among workers. Instead, workers with more seniority will get more vacation time. Workers will now be entitled to 4 weeks' holiday after seven years on the job, and older workers can choose a three- or four-day work week. Health and pension benefits were also improved.

SEIU VP And ACORN Leader Charged With Racism

Posted Fri, 10/28/2005 - 3:02pm by x344543

Disclaimer - The following article is reposted here because it is an issue with some relevance to the IWW. The views of the author do not necessarily agree with those of the IWW and vice versa.

Wade Rathke, ACORN  CEO and union buster is up to his old tricks again.  Recall that ACORN engaged in union busting against the IWW four years ago.  Now he's attacking a New Orleans based grassroots union Community Labor United.  The IWW is publishing this letter in solidarity with CLU:

An Open Letter to the Labor Movement Regarding Katrina: October 19, 2005

Brothers and Sisters,

The crisis for the working class (whether employed or not, waged or not) continues to grow. Even as the nation, and especially the poor and Black working class of the Gulf states and New Orleans in particular, tries to pick up the pieces after Katrina's (and Rita's) devastation, the assault by capital and their partners in the government grows more intense - the suspension of Davis Bacon and OHSA safeguards, plans to defund the safety net to finance business interests in the reconstruction of the region, little thought to how those left behind will find a home in the reconstruction process and its outcome. The Democrats have failed to articulate a credible alternative to this plan or address this crisis in any significant way.

Pizza Time Negotiations Break Down

Posted Wed, 08/03/2005 - 3:50pm by x344543

The former Pizza Time workers met with owner Heath Flores to discuss thereinstatement of four workers who lost their jobs in February. Floresbroke off negotiations on Tuesday by flatly refusing all six terms of thewritten proposal. We had hoped Flores would work with us to reach anagreement. We offered to draw up a new proposal with Flores' input, butthat idea was refused as well. Flores’ final offer was the same as hisfirst—we could turn in applications and may be hired and fired at will. We feel Flores is not taking the negotiations seriously and never intendedto consider our position.

History of Negotiations with Heath Flores

The former Pizza Time workers tried to arrange a meeting three timesbefore the store re-opened, but were met with closed minds on eachoccasion. On July 20th we returned to the corner of 4th and Jefferson tohold picket signs and share our story. At this point Flores agreed tomeet and discuss the terms for reinstatement in writing.At the first two negotiation meetings on July 29th and August 1st, we madeit clear that there was no animosity against Flores personally; what wewanted was resolution for the injustices served to us by former ownersShane Bloking and Richard Kelley. We asked Flores to recognize that theworkers’ unity and the community’s stand for justice ultimately droveShane Bloking out of the state, and gave Flores the opportunity to ownOlympia Pizza Time.