The union vote resulted in 23 workers in favor and 17 opposed to joining the union. With this vote, the Renaissance becomes the third hotel in the city whose workers have organized to join the union.
“I am so proud that we decided to join the union today,” said Raquel Cruz a Renaissance Providence housekeeper. “We are breaking the cycle of racial inequity with higher wages and benefits so that everyone in Providence moves forward.”
Data shows that Union hotels in Providence increase racial equity with higher wages and better benefits. Given the demographics of the hotel workforce in Providence, any increase in wages or benefits would disproportionately benefit women and people of color.
According to the most recent census information, [Census Statistics are from the 2010 American Community Survey 5-year estimates. Housekeeping statistics use the EEO code 4230 “Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners.”] the typical housekeeper in Providence is a Hispanic woman making under $25,000 annually. This workforce earns significantly less than the median income for both white male and female full-time workers (at $52,543 and $44,007 respectively). The most recent Union hotel contract between Unite Here Local 217 and Omni Providence to be negotiated specifies that the lowest wage for housekeepers is $15.96 per hour, which would come out to over $33,000 annually.
Workers rallied with signs with the number 56 crossed out. According to the workers, these signs represent the desire to close the Latina wage gap, where nationally on average, Latinas earn 56 cents to the dollar that white, non-Hispanic males make.
[From a Unite Here! Local 217 press release]
]]>In a two hour march through downtown Providence, nearly 100 workers and activists visited businesses engaged in wage theft, low pay and anti-unionization efforts. The event was organized through Rhode Island Jobs with Justice in collaboration with Restaurant Opportunities Center of RI (ROC-RI), Fuerza Laboral, Carpenters Local 94, SEIU Rhode Island, UNITE HERE Local 217, Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE) and IUPAT Local 195 DC 11 Painters.
The groups are “seeking a city ordinance that would require all companies getting tax breaks in Providence to pay workers a living wage of at least $15/hr, provide paid sick days, health benefits, and fair, predictable schedules.” They also want the city to “follow the First Source ordinance by hiring residents of Providence, prioritize hiring people from high poverty neighborhoods, and make sure that people working these jobs have a pathway to a real career by using apprenticeship programs.”
The groups are also asking Mayor Jorge Elorza to live up to the campaign promises he made while still a candidate at a mayoral forum in South Providence, “to set up a community board with the power to approve/disapprove projects, take back money if companies aren’t living up to what they say they’ll do, and negotiate the construction of projects community members identify as needs, such as affordable housing, or fixing up an abandoned lot into a park.”
The Providence Police Department cleared the streets ahead of the marchers, who started their protest outside of Gourmet Heaven on Weybosset St. This is the third time protesters gathered outside the restaurant, which is accused of stealing wages from employees here in Rhode Island in a situation similar to Connecticut where substantial fines have been levied against the company for wage theft. Two workers addressed the crowd, and spoke about the abusive working conditions they say they endured. One worker said he was told, when he demanded his pay, that if he complained the management would have him deported.
The marchers then walked a short way up the street to Cilantro restaurant, a chain recently fined by the US Labor Department for wage theft to the tune of $100,000. Oddly, a Cilantro worker met the crowd, offering tortilla chips and bottled drinks, which were refused. “We don’t want your crumbs, we want our money,” quipped Michael Araujo of ROC-RI.
The march then continued across the city to the Providence Hilton Hotel, owned by The Procaccianti Group, where hotel workers were already outside picketing. The two groups merged into a protest of well over 150 people. The workers at the Providence Hilton announced a worker-led boycott of the hotel, joining the boycott efforts of workers at the Renaissance Providence Hotel (also owned by Procaccianti Group.) Employees from the Omni Providence Hotel were also on hand to support the boycott effort.
City Councillor Carmen Castillo spoke to the crowd about her experiences working at the Omni Providence Hotel, which was owned by the Procaccianti Group when it was called the Westin. Since the Procaccianti Group sold the hotel, worker conditions have markedly improved. Also speaking to the crowd was hotel worker Santa Brito.
The protest then headed for the Providence City Hall, stopping along the way at the Subway sandwich shop attached to the skating rink. Here Jo-Ann Gesterling, a fast food worker from Wendy’s, spoke to the crowd. Gesterling has led previous at her store and was arrested last year in Hartford CT during a Fight for $15 protest there. Gesterling talked about the importance of raising the minimum wage to $15, and about the effort to improve working conditions at her restaurant.
The final stop of the march was Providence City Hall, where Malchus Mills of DARE called on Mayor Jorge Elorza to honor his campaign commitments and enforce the First Source ordinance, which prioritizes city hiring from Providence communities. Mills also called upon the City Council to demand fair wages and benefits for workers from companies seeking tax stabilizations from the city. Also speaking at the City Hall was Jeffrey Santos, member of Carpenters Local 94.
]]>House Bill 5363 which attempts to curb tip theft in the service industry and give employees additional power to combat the practice, was introduced by Representative Aaron Regunberg this year. It is identical to the one introduced the last two years by Rep Chris Blazejewski with the big difference being that public awareness of the pervasiveness of tip and wage theft is growing due to some serious studies released recently (along with the efforts of the Fight for $15 movement) and the addition of a new player here in Rhode Island as Mike Araujo takes the helm of a new local branch of the Restaurant Opportunity Center, ROC United RI.
“Tip theft is a practice in which employers or managers appropriate some of the money left as tips for restaurant, hotel or other service workers,” Regunberg explained.
It primarily occurs, he said, in four different ways:
1. Employers can demand a cut of tips from workers
2. Employers can absorb automatic service fees who you might think would go to those workers that provided the service,
3. Employers can charge workers if customers use credit cards
4. Employers can include themselves in the tip pool and then take a cut of that pool.
“For me there’s a few different angles to this issue,” said Regunberg, “Besides being a workers protection issue, I really believe it’s fundamentally a consumers rights issue as well. If I am eating at a restaurant or staying at a hotel, and I leave a ten dollar tip, I assume the entire ten dollars is joined to the workers who did the work that I paid the tip for. I think that’s a reasonable assumption, one that’s shared by the vast majority of customers.”
Chris Tarro, owner of Siena Restaurant Group, sidestepped the issue as to whether or not customers are being duped when restaurants take part of a tip or the entirety of a service charge, saying, “Every employee in my facility knows, when they get hired, that I deduct the credit card fee on their gratuity only.”
Mike Araujo of ROC United RI, countered that, “To say that the credit card fee or the commission that’s paid is on the gratuity alone is kind of a misnomer. The fact is that a tip is a wage. It’s making up the difference in a wage that’s already too low, so anything that comes out of that wage is directly coming out of the pocket of that employee.”
Joey DeFrancesco, who became an Internet sensation with his video “Joey Quits” in 2011, explained one way in which the present process works against the employee actually providing the service.
“I worked at the Providence Renaissance Hotel… this is a pretty fancy place… I worked in room service and we made about $5.50 an hour, so below minimum wage. On top of that we got service charges in the hotel. Each bill going to room service got a 20 percent service charge. the customer sees that bill, assumes that’s a tip, and is not going to tip you. You’re not going to be impolite and say, ‘Actually, you know, we’re not getting that,’ you know, that’s against the rules.
“What was actually happening is the hotel was taking that 20 percent service charge and then our managers, supervisors who were making more than twice as much as us per hour, were taking half of that. So at the end of the day the servers actually conducting the work were making less than half of the tip money that customers believed they were giving to those servers.”
Joseph Fortune worked at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in downtown Providence during the entirety of it’s being open.
“If it was a booked banquet, I would still be making $2.89 an hour. The tip would look like a 20 percent tip going to the waitstaff, but really 17 percent went to the waitstaff and the other 3 percent was administrative for the managers. And pretty much, the customers never knew that… I would be fired if I told them, ‘Look, that 3 percent isn’t going to me.’”
The restaurant owners in attendance, mostly members of the Rhode Island Hospitality Association (RIHA), disagreed with the way the issue was being framed, and disagreed on the basic definition of certain terms, like service charge, gratuity and management. Kristin Gennuso, of Chez Pascal, explained why she thinks there’s a difference between a tip and a service charge.
“They are not considered to be the same thing by the IRS,” said Gennuso, “A tip is money that is left by a consumer. It is left free of will. A service charge is imposed, put on by the establishment. Sometimes you’ll see that for parties of six or more there will be a 20 percent gratuity, excuse me, service charge.”
“When you add a service charge to someone’s bill, you the consumer has to pay an 8 percent tax on that service charge. Then I take that service charge, I have to put that in as a sale… and then I can distribute it to my employees through payroll where the taxes can be taken out. So it’s consider a sale, that raises my sales liability, I have to put it into my payroll, which raises my payroll, and my worker’s compensation liability, and then I can distribute it out as I see fit because it’s an item on a check.”
“So, if it says a service charge, it’s not a tip. They’re two very different things.”
House Labor Committee vice-chair Rep Thomas Palangio pointed out that when a customer sees a service charge on a bill, they are going to assume that it’s for the server, to which Gennuso replied, “That’s a problem with the language, isn’t it?”
When Palangio pressed that people won’t tip as much, because they assume it’s taken care of in the service charge, Gennuso countered, “But it’s not the fault of the employer, however.”
Restaurant owners had other complaints as well. Chris Tarro explained that he has “140 employees, and I love my employees. I love ‘em. So when I hear the word ‘fraud,’ or ‘steal,’ or ‘take advantage,’ I get pissed off. I love my staff. When it snows and we have a bad day, I care more about them than about me. I’m getting choked up because I care about them, and I don’t know a restaurant owner that doesn’t.
“This is the industry I love, and this is one of the only thriving industries in the state, and we’re being attacked.
“This bill- I get the intent of this bill- we shouldn’t steal from our staff. I absolutely agree that this is a worthwhile goal but this bill isn’t the way to accomplish it.”
This prompted Jaimie, a restaurant worker in support of this bill, to counter, “If [Taro] really loves his employees and wants to protect them, there’s no reason there should be any opposition to this bill.”
“This legislation,” says Representative Regunberg, “is not punishing businesses. It doesn’t add an additional tax onto business owners. What it does is ensure that workers, many of whom are low wage workers relying on those tips, receive the gratuities that they worked for, and customers’ money goes where it was intended to go.”
But Chris Tarro thinks the bill does impose a cost, saying, “This bill avoids the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training (DLT) and goes to Superior Court. We have a DLT to handle this, but the bill would move these cases to the much more costly superior court.” (Though unsurprisingly, I have never heard of a business owner who would willingly forgo Superior Court in the case of an employee caught stealing from them.)
Bill Kitsilis, an attorney as well as the owner of Angelo’s Pizza Palace, complained that “what scares me about this bill is that it’s a pro-plaintiffs bill. There’s a lot of propaganda to say it’s protecting employees, it’s tip theft and wage theft, but what this is is an administrative nightmare for especially pizza restaurants, the counter service, coffee shops, you name it.”
“This bill says that you can only share the tips in proportion to the work done by the service employees. What does that mean? On a Friday night at Angelo’s Pizza I have two people working the counter up front, two cashiers in the back answering phones but they’re not doing the same exact work. There’s one tip jar up in the front and they all share it equally. We’ve been doing it this way for thirty years without a problem.”
“What happens here, when you have a law that brings you right to Superior Court, it absconds, because you don’t go to the Department of Labor anymore, and it makes you pay if you lose, even a little bit. Trying to defend what proportionality means and sharing of tips? Who a manager really is and who a manager isn’t?”
“Put this in the hands of a plaintiffs attorney where they get to go to court and they’re entitled to attorney’s fees and triple the damages if they just win a little bit? or put a gun to an owner’s head where you’re forced to settle. No offense to any attorneys on this board.”
This prompted Rep. Joe Shekarchi, the chairman, to distance himself from the legislation, laughing, “I can assure you that none of us drafted this bill.”
Bob Bacon, head of the Rhode Island Hospitality Association and owner of Gregg’s Restaurants argued that, “A state law on this would be redundant to the federal law. The federal law is very thorough. It’s very well enforced…”
Joey DeFrancisco disagreed with Bacon’s assessment. “I thought federal law would cover [the tip theft I experienced at the Renaissance Hotel Providence], so I went to the Department of Labor… and I said, ‘This is crazy that this is going on, can you guys investigate?’ This was in 2011. They did so, they looked into the issue, they interviewed managers and workers they got back to me and said, ‘Okay, in fact, they are stealing your tips, however because they are not stealing enough of your tips that it’s putting you below minimum wage, there’s actually nothing the federal Department of Labor can do about this.”
Remember that there are many different ways in which tips may be stolen by management. So sometimes, when the fines are big enough and the case is against a high profile target, the US Department of Labor does step in. “Mario Batali was fined $5 million” for wage theft, points out Chris Tarro.
“The federal laws are simply not sufficient,” concludes DeFrancisco. “They do not cover tip theft in the forms we’re talking about, which is why so many states… have passed bills like this.”
In fact, according to Regunberg, “Rhode Island is significantly behind the eight ball on this issue. By my count there’s at least 23 other states that have state legislation banning some or all forms of tip theft, including most of our neighbors. New Hampshire, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, etc.”
“If you pass this bill and servers cost more,” warns Chris Taro, “the people that might get hurt are the people who are already the lowest paid in the industry. The cooks. The dishwashers. The cleaning guys.
“I want my servers to make more money,” continues Tarro, “This isn’t the bill to do it. Let’s work together promoting this industry. Let’s educate the people who are breaking the law and penalize them. Let’s get together and spend more money on tourism because our state is pitiful and behind. I do more business, they make more money. Simple as that.”
But to argue that laws meant to protect low wage workers hurts the restaurant industry ignores the fact, says Mike Araujo of ROC United RI, that, “the people who serve are part of the industry.”
He said, “The average tipped worker does not make $20 an hour. We are not all high end restaurants. We are mostly Denny’s, we are mostly diner service. So to say that ‘my people do well’ or ‘I love my people’ might be true, but we have to love all the people who work in the industry.”
Bob Bacon made a counter offer that would involve no intervention from government. “…as chairman of [RIHA] last year and as a member of the board the year before, and I’ll reiterate this year again, if one of these people that says they have all these problems, if they want to come to us, I’ve offered for three years in a row to do the following: First, we’ll keep the employees name confidential. Second, we’ll meet with the employer and we’ll bring the complaint to their attention, third, we’ll work to educate that employer on the U.S. Department of Labor’s rules and regulations on the matter, and fourth, probably most important, in the event that an employer chooses to stay out of compliance with an issue, we would assist the employee in going through the appropriate channels to get the situation rectified.”
It doesn’t seem to have occurred to Bacon that the idea of an employee, going to a consortium of power players in the restaurant and service industry here in Rhode Island to make a complaint with no guarantee of legal protection of the kind granted by the government, might be seen as career suicide. The idea that wage theft can be dealt with by the very industry committing the violations is absurd.
“…the majority of the people in this industry, they object to the people who may violate [laws against wage and tip theft],” says Bacon, “Thirty-five years plus in the industry, I’ve never encountered it, but I’m not naive enough to say that it doesn’t exist. I can tell you that it doesn’t exist on the level that’s being portrayed here tonight. I can say that without any reservation.”
Back in reality, Rep Regunberg said, “In order for us to have a productive dialog and come to a solution that optimal for all parties, we first have to take as valid that this is a real issue. This is a practice that happens, and I’m by no means implying that all employers engage in tip theft, but I can almost guarantee you that if you talk with nearly any service worker, they can clarify that this is something that takes place and not as an isolated incident. This is something that can occur regularly, that places a real burden on Rhode Islanders who are working hard and are relying on tips to make ends meet.”
Mike Araujo was more pointed. “The fact is that the people who work for tips in Rhode Island use public assistance at a rate twice that of any other employee. Of the 20,000 people who work for tips in Rhode Island we’re talking about 10,000 who are on assistance. Clearly, every penny counts to these people.
“The cost of public assistance, just in food assistance to tipped workers in Rhode Island, amounts to $700,000 per month,” continues Araujo, “It’s vital that this passes. This is an issue of poverty, this is an issue of equality, and this is the right thing to do.”
]]>Marino Cruz was fired by the management of the Providence Renaissance Hotel last week, and in the process, had a minor heart attack. While recovering in the hospital, management had a restraining order delivered to him. Cruz maintains that the reasons management gave for dismissing him are trumped up and that the hotel management really wants him out of the way because of his efforts to unionize the hotel and his outspoken criticism of the racist way in which the hotel treats its employees.
The protesters were not just demanding Cruz’ reinstatement, they were there to demand fair wages, decent working conditions and plain old human decency on the part of The Procaccianti Group, the management company responsible for many hotels in Rhode Island and throughout the world.
Toward the end of the protest, things got heated as the protesters contended the seemingly arbitrary line between public sidewalk and hotel property. Nearly a dozen Providence police officers, with private hotel security hanging back, clashed with protesters in sometimes heated, but ultimately non-violent confrontations.
Providence City Councilperson Carmen Castillo was marching with the protesters. Castillo is a fierce advocate for worker’s rights, having helped to organize a union at the Westin Hotel around 15 years ago. When she attempted to enter the hotel lobby, a police officer physically prevented her entrance by grabbing her arm and threatened with arrest. As can be seen and heard in the video, Castillo was not very pleased by this. In the next video we hear Castillo addressing the protesters.
Andrew Tillet-Saks, an organizer with Unite Here, explains to the assembled protesters the reasons for the rally outside the Renaissance in this video.
Speakers at the protest included Marino Cruz’ daughter, Jennifer, and his wife, Raquel, who also works as a housekeeper at the Renaissance.
Also on hand was Adrienne Jones, who shared the news that the National Labor Review Board (NLRB) found in her favor when it ruled that the Providence Hilton fired her because she was trying to start a union, not for any deficiencies in her work.
Juan Garcia, one of the strongest voices in the immigrant organizing community, spoke about the unfair and racist treatment of Hispanics by The Procaccianti Group. Garcia spoke in Spanish, but I have added the on-the-spot translation provided by Unite Here’s Andrew Tillet-Saks.
The last video features Juice Kelley, with an impassioned message for all workers.
Hell yeah!
There was no other press at this event.
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]]>Update: There will be a Rally for Marino 6:30pm Wednesday outside the Renaissance Providence Hotel, 5 Avenue of the Arts, Providence. See the link for details.
Marino Cruz, a 35-year-old houseman at the Providence Renaissance Hotel, was called into his manager’s office last Wednesday and told that he was being fired.
Cruz objected, and argued with management about the reasons for his termination. “Their story kept changing,” he said, “and when they fired me, they accused me of more things. They tried to get me to admit to false things.”
The real reason the hotel management wanted him fired, claims Cruz, is because he is a leader in the effort to unionize hotel employees for fair wages and decent working conditions.
The meeting to fire Cruz soon reached a breaking point. “The combination of shock and excitement gave me a small heart attack, so they [the management] called me an ambulance to the hospital,” says Cruz.
At Rhode Island Hospital, where PVD emergency services brought him, the doctors found that there was damage to Cruz’ heart and they kept him for just over 24 hours, running further tests. Cruz is awaiting the results.
Marino Cruz does not speak much English, and I speak no Spanish, so our interview was conducted with the help of an interpreter. He’s worked at the Providence Renaissance Hotel for three years, and has three children. Fortunately for Cruz, his wife’s job provides health care for the family.
While he was in still in his hospital bed, two Providence police officers entered with Cruz’ wife and presented him with a restraining order from hotel management. He’s due in court on December 18. This is why nearly 30 people picketed outside the Renaissance Hotel last Thursday in the pouring rain.
“They’re trying to take me out of the fight,” said Cruz. A restraining order will keep Cruz off the picket line and away from hotel employees. “I couldn’t imagine that they would put me out on the street just for fighting for justice.”
He said, “the situation at the hotel is getting uglier.” Employees are not only suffering from low wages, excessive workloads and copious injuries, he said, they also suffer “the disrespect of the management” that treats people as replaceable and disposable.
At the Providence Renaissance Hotel, housekeepers, mostly women, are worked hard. They are responsible for cleaning more rooms in a day than housekeepers at other area hotels, and they are paid much less, minimum wage or pennies more. Injuries to the back, shoulders and hands are affecting more than half a dozen workers. Some have rashes on their faces and skin from the harsh chemicals used to clean the rooms. There is “an epidemic of women’s bodies just giving out with permanent injuries,” Cruz said.
As one of the few leaders of the unionization effort not injured, Cruz has been vocal about these issues in meetings with management. Cruz believes that this is why management decided to target him. When he’s punched in, Cruz does his job. When he’s off duty, he organizes, pickets and strategizes ways to improve working conditions at the hotel.
The Providence Renaissance Hotel is run by The Procaccianti Group, which also manages the Providence Hilton. They have a long history of treating employees less than fairly. In March I profiled Adrienne Jones and Krystle Martin, two single moms targeted and fired for their unionization efforts. In May I reported on how the hotel lost its gay-friendly rating. The Procaccianti Group was one of the key lobbyists pushing through the state ban on minimum wage increases by cities and municipalities. The Renaissance is currently being boycotted by those committed to fair wages and working conditions.
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]]>Unite Here 217, the organizer of Tuesday’s “emergency action” called the suspension of the employees, “a clear attempt to stifle the workers’ organizing campaign” and maintain that the charges brought against the employees by The Procaccianti Group, the corporation that manages the hotel, are “trumped up.”
Activists and supporters joined hotel employees for about 20 minutes of marching and chanting on the wet and windy sidewalk outside the hotel. Then a group of activists attempted to enter the hotel, petition the management and demand that Cruz and Arias be given back their jobs. Hotel employees did not approach the hotel but stayed on the sidewalk to avoid being fired by management.
As can be seen in the video below, the protesters never entered the premises. Instead, the doors were locked and private security prevented entrance to the hotel. A few minutes later two Providence police officers arrived, and the crowd dispersed.
Protesters vow that until the Procaccianti Group sits across the table and deals fairly with its workers, protests and boycotts will continue, no matter the weather.
On a personal note, keeping the camera dry under such conditions is extremely difficult, but the results were with the effort.
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]]>Let’s also not forget that when the Providence City Council moved to allow voters in Providence to democratically decide whether or not to raise the minimum wage for hotel workers to $15, the General Assembly and especially the House of Representatives under the leadership of Speaker Mattiello, passed a budget amendment to prevent cities and towns from determining their own minimum wages.
Business and government conspired to keep working mothers poor. Yet the hotel workers keep fighting and marching the picket line every Wednesday, demonstrating more character and humanity in two hours a week than the General Assembly musters all year.
]]>Some hotels downtown pay fair wages and are willing to negotiate with their employees about working conditions. The Providence Renaissance Hotel next to the State House and the Providence Hilton next to the Convention Center do not. The practices at these hotels have been shameful. And to a casual observer, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that the management at these hotels are specifically targeting young mothers for harassment and termination. (See the pieces I wrote in collaboration with Krystle Martin and Adrienne Jones.)
In response, the hotel workers and Unite Here! 217 have planned an ongoing series of pickets at both hotels, called Working Women Wednesday. Each week a team of protesters will be raising a ruckus at each hotel. Attention will be called to the fact that the profits of the Providence Renaissance Hotel and the Providence Hilton Hotel made by treating working mothers as disposable commodities.
Let’s demand that hotel management do better.
]]>The truck, placed so as to spare hotel management and guests the sight of underpaid and overworked employees advocating for fair wages and treatment, became a source of amusement and jokes among the protesters. When a gigantic 18-wheeler rumbled by emblazoned with a large “Teamsters” logo, chants of “We’ve got a bigger truck!” began, followed by laughter.
To highlight the abuse of workers rights alleged to take place at the hotel by the workers on the picket line, the protesters held a mock funeral for the United States Constitution. The document had a good run, said the protesters, only to be murdered by the Prociaccianti Group that owns and manages the hotel. Speaking in memory of the Constitution were Adrienne Jones, interviewed here at RI Future last Monday, and Krystle Martin, whose interview will be on this sight shortly, as well as many other workers and Providence Councilperson Carmen Castillo.
Since the unionization effort began, three union leaders have lost their jobs at the Hilton Providence and eight workers have been reprimanded, according to the organizers, so the Prociaccianti Group appears to be playing union busting hardball. Two of the fired workers, the aforementioned Jones and Martin, are single moms, leading some on the picket line to assert that the Hilton is targeting single mothers, who are more vulnerable economically. It’s hard to imagine more deplorable behavior.
Forming a union is an essential human right, and whatever efforts the hotel is undertaking to squelch the union is morally indefensible. The Prociaccianti Group is already bleeding business. The Unitarian Universalist General Assembly is bringing thousands of people to the Providence area this Summer, and they are not staying at the Hilton or the Renaissance (where workers are also batting for their right to unionize) in response to the hotel’s treatment of its workers. More groups are sure to follow.
Meanwhile, local media, including the rapidly declining Providence Journal and local TV news continue to ignore the plight of workers fighting for their rights, leaving coverage of this developing story to the Brown Daily Herald and RI Future. Stories about real human suffering and economic exploitation are beneath their notice, it seems.
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