Hotel workers and supporters protested for fair pay, fair treatment and fair union negotiations outside the Providence Hilton Hotel until almost midnight on May 15. The “block party” actually a protest and boycott, last nearly two hours. Protesters were joined by Chris Hasslinger and others representing Brown University medical students, who had recently moved a planned conference out of the hotel in support of the hotel workers’ efforts.
Some hotel patrons were extremely upset by the legal, peaceful protest. Two woman, luggage in tow, decided to take their business elsewhere after talking to the picketers. One wonders how long The Procaccianti Group, the company that manages the hotel, can afford to throw money away while fighting against the rights of workers to organize and have decent lives.
This short video provides a flavor of the evening:
Hotel workers carried signs, beat drums and chanted outside the Providence Renaissance Hotel at 7am Saturday morning. The Renaissance Providence Hotel has been resisting efforts by its staff to form a union to negotiate for better wages and humane working conditions.
The protest was held early because many of the hotel workers involved had to be at work by 8am. The protest was not appreciated by the hotel, and after a few minutes the Providence police arrived. However, once the police realized that the noise ordinance was not being violated, they informed hotel management that workers have a right to picket, and the protest continued for a full hour.
Hotel guests were not appreciative. Two women, hotel patrons, identified themselves as school teachers and union members. They called the picketers actions “rude” and “too much.” It is unknown if the women had any knowledge about the health-breaking and low-paying working conditions at the luxury hotel they were staying in.
Both the Renaissance and the Providence Hilton are managed by The Procaccianti Group (TPG), and conditions for workers at both hotels are measurably worse than at other area hotels. Room cleaners are expected to clean many more rooms for much less money at TPG run hotels. The work TPG forces upon their employees is exhausting, and it is costing hotel workers their health, say organizers.
The workers are being helped in their organizing by Unite Here 217.
More than 500 people crowded into the meeting room of Our Lady of the Rosary Church on Benefit St in Providence for the Worker & Community Speakout for Good Jobs and Quality Care on January 17. At issue was the contract negotiation between Lifespan/Rhode Island Hospital and General Teamsters Local 251 representing some 2,500 hospital employees.
According to Local 251, “As a non-profit entity, Lifespan and RI Hospital are supposed to put the healthcare needs of the community first. Unfortunately, management has taken cost cutting measures, causing shortages in equipment and staff that undermine patient care.”
Literature at the Speakout quoted a nurse, Aliss Collins, saying, “When we are understaffed, I cover 56 patients in three units. It’s not right for the patients or the employees.” There was a story at the Speakout of another nurse who was forced to buy her own equipment for measuring oxygen levels, because the hospital did not provide it.
Obamacare has allowed Lifespan/RI Hospital to take in an additional $33 million in net revenue last year, because so many Rhode Islanders are now covered under Medicaid. Yet rather than invest this money in patient care, Lifespan pays its “ten highest paid executives” more than $16.6 million in its last fiscal year, an average of $1 million more in compensation “than the average earned by CEOs of nonprofit hospitals nationally,” according to the union.
At the same time, hospital employees such as single mom Nuch Keller make $12.46 an hour with no healthcare coverage. Keller’s pay does not even cover her rent. She regularly works 40 hours or more per week, yet Lifespan continues to pay her as a part-time employee. And in case you missed it, Keller works at a non-profit hospital, and receives no healthcare.
The Speakout was intended to show community support for the workers of RI Hospital, and was attended by Representatives David Cicilline and Jim Langevin, as well as General treasurer Seth Magaziner. There were also representatives from many other unions and community groups such as Jobs with Justice, Unite Here! and Fuerza Laboral. Many religious leaders, including Father Joseph Escobar and Rev Duane Clinker, were on hand to show support.
It was hard not to feel that something new was happening at the Speakout. The level of community support and solidarity made one feel as if a union resurgence were imminent, which many feel is necessary if obscene inequality is to be combated.
It was Duane Clinker who helped put the event into perspective for me. He said that unions have often limited their negotiations to wages, hours and benefits, and health-care unions have long argued staffing levels, but “when/if organized workers really make alliance with the community around access to jobs and improved patient care – if that happens in such a large union and a key employer in the state, then we enter new territory.”
This struggle continues on Thursday, January 29, from 2-6pm, with an Informational Picket at Rhode Island Hospital. “The picket line on Thursday is for informational purposes. It is is not a request that anyone cease working or refuse to make deliveries.”
Full video from the Speakout is below.
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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]]>Just under 30 people marched and chanted Tuesday afternoon in the pouring rain outside the Renaissance Providence Hotel to protest the suspension, pending termination, of Marino Cruz and Veronica Arias, two employees who have helped to lead the campaign to improve working conditions at the hotel. Though it is illegal to fire an employee for organizing workers, proving that employees have been let go because of their organizing is difficult.
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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One of the few bright spots on the Rhode Island economic landscape is tourism, but should our economic successes be built on the backs of women scraping by on minimum wage?
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.
Last May Day, we were graced with a history lesson from URI professor Erik Loomis on the origins of International Workers Day. This May Day, Rhode Island is graced with actual workers fighting in real time for better working and living conditions.
And so fast food workers, hotel workers, those unfairly swept up in the foreclosure crisis, immigrants and many more will march together in solidarity to City Hall and the State House.
Jo-Ann Gesterling, a Warwick Wendy’s worker who has been leading the fast food fight for a $15 minimum wage in Rhode Island, is speaking at the first stop on a Jobs With Justice-led march to the State House.
From a Burger King on Broad St., the activists will march to the Providence Hilton, where a hotel worker will speak about their recent efforts to form a union and more recently to ask the Providence City Council to pass a $15 minimum wage ordinance for the hotel industry.
And when group reaches the State House, Lilia Abbatematteo, who has been fighting an unjust foreclosure and simultaneously lobbying for the Just Cause bill which would stop tenant evictions, will speak about her plight and ensuing cause.
Speakers from Fuerza Laboral, the Olneyville Neighborhood Association, and Committee of Immigrants in Action, will be speaking on how the immigrants’ rights movement brought May Day to the US, and on campaigns to win driver’s licenses for undocumented people, stop deportations, and accomplish immigration reform at the national level.
Suzette Cook, whose son Joshua Robinson was brutally beaten last year by the Providence Police in a high profile case, will speak on racial profiling, and the criminalization of people of color and working class people.
The march starts at 4:30pm at 280 Broad St., Providence.
It was organized by RI Jobs with Justice, Direct Action for Rights and Equality, Fuerza Laboral, Olneyville Neighborhood Association, American Friends Service Committee, RI People’s Assembly, Committee of Immigrants in Action, UNITE HERE Local 217.
Here’s the full itinerary:
Thursday, May 1st
Rally begins at 4:30pm at 280 Broad St., Providence (Burger King), where Jo-Ann Gesterling, Worker at the Warwick Ave. Wendy’s, will speak on the Campaign for $15/hr and a union for Fast Food Workers
March Stops at:
The Hilton Hotel, where workers from the Renaissance and Hilton join together to demand respect, better working conditions, and a $15 minimum wage for hotel workers across the city.
Providence City Hall, where Mil Herndon, member of Direct Action for Rights and Equality, will speak on the need for the city of Providence to fully enforce its “First Source” ordinance and provide jobs for Providence residents when companies receive huge tax breaks
RI State House, to hear speakers on:
– Immigrant’s Rights: Campaigns for Driver’s Licenses for All, to Stop Deportations, and for Comprehensive Reform at the National Level
– Just Cause Legislation: Allow Tenants to Stay in their Homes after their Landlords are Foreclosed on
– An End to Racial Profiling: Hear Suzzette Cook, whose son was brutally beaten by the Providence Police, share her story
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Providence may be getting a $15 minimum wage ordinance for hotel workers if activists fighting for better working conditions at the Hilton and Renaissance get their way.
Today at 3:30 they are submitting more the more than 1,000 signatures needed to force the City Council to consider such an ordinance.
“We hope the City will not delay in bringing this Ordinance to the City Council so that we can consider the ordinance,” said City Councilor Carmen Castillo in a press release. “From talking to hundreds of people in Providence, this is an incredibly important issue for our city that quickly deserves the City’s attention.”
Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, who is running for governor, has not yet responded to a request for comment on the potential ordinance.
If the city validates the signatures, the Council will then have 70 days to take up the ordinance that would set a $15 minimum wage for hotel workers in Providence. The press release says there are more than 1,000 hotel workers who live in Providence.
“With this new minimum wage, I will be able to shop and support small business in my neighborhood,” said a housekeeper named Santa who works at the Renaissance Hotel. “No one on my block has any disposable income right now, so we suffer just like the business owners in our community.”
Employees and activists have been leading a high profile campaign for better working conditions at the Renaissance and Hilton hotels in Providence. They say they are forced to work in poor conditions for paltry wages while the multinational real estate holding company that owns the two hotels makes huge profits.
“We work very hard for billionaire corporations who pay us incredibly little,” said Yilenny Ferraras, a housekeeper at the Hilton. “If I received just a dollar and change more per room, my whole life and my whole neighborhood would change for the better.”
Since the public protests have begun, at least three activists have been fired, they say, for speaking out about the work conditions and advocating for collective bargaining rights.
Read our full coverage of the Hilton workers here.
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The first thing I noticed as I approached the Hilton Providence on Friday evening was the rented U-Haul truck parked conspicuously between the sidewalk where unionizing workers were staging their protest and the main entrance to the hotel.
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.
