Employees of the Hotel Palomar and Hotel Allegro are off the picket lines and back at work after ratifying a contract over the weekend, leaving 17 downtown hotels where workers were still on strike.þþThe strike, now in its third week, at its peak involved 26 hotels where thousands of housekeepers, doormen, cooks and other hotel employees stopped working to demand year-round health insurance and other improvements to working conditions.þþUNITE HERE Local 1, the union representing the striking workers, tweeted Saturday that employees of the Palomar and Allegro, both Kimpton brand hotels, had ratified a contract. It offered no details about the contract terms.þþ“We’re pleased that we were able to reach an agreement with the union at both Hotel Allegro and Hotel Palomar,” Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants said in a statement. “Our employees and guests remain our first priority and we will continue to provide the heartfelt service and care Kimpton is known for.”þþThe strike started to move toward a resolution Thursday when Marriott International reached an agreement with workers at its six affected properties, raising hopes that other hotels would follow suit. There were no details offered about Marriott’s contract terms. Workers at the boutique Hotel Blake also ratified a contract and ended their strike that day.þþA list of hotels were the strike continues is at chicagohotelstrike.org.þþHyatt Hotels, whose affected hotels include the Hyatt Regency Chicago and the Hyatt Regency McCormick, is among the large hotel groups where contract agreements have yet to be reached. It completed a negotiation session with the union Friday and has another scheduled for Tuesday.þþ“We remain disappointed that UNITE HERE has chosen to strike while Hyatt remains at the negotiation table and negotiating in good faith,” said Michael D’Angelo, Hyatt’s vice president of labor relations for the Americas.þþ“Hyatt has not rejected any health care proposals from the union,” he added. “On the contrary, we have discussed terms consistent with those agreed by others to extend employer-funded health care coverage for a scenario where a full-time colleague is involuntarily unscheduled to work during slower winter periods, while maintaining today’s leading jointly administered health care plans.”þþUNITE HERE Local 1 called the strike Sept. 7, a week after the expiration of contracts covering 6,000 employees at 30 hotels, as new contract negotiations were underway with the employers. Each hotel group bargains with the union separately.þþThe union said it was fighting to ensure all employees receive year-round health insurance, even during the slow months, usually in the winter, when some employees get temporarily laid off. Other issues at stake are workloads and wages for tipped employees.þþThe work stoppage — as well as the picketers’ loud chanting and pot-clanging in front of some of the city’s largest hotels — comes at a busy time for Chicago tourism. The city had a record 55.2 million visitors last year, according to the mayor’s office, and hotel room revenue in the central business district was up 11 percent through August of this year compared with the same period last year, according to hotel data specialist STR.þþMayor Rahm Emanuel said in a statement after the Marriott agreement was reached last week that it was “a significant step forward for the union, the hotels and the city, and I am confident it can light a path forward to ending the labor action at other hotels in the city.” He added: “The fact that workers and their families will now receive health care year-round will make an enormous difference in their lives.”þþThe union has said the downtown hotel strike is the broadest the city has seen, though Chicago experienced a 10-day work stoppage at 25 hotels across the city in June 1903, according to news reports at the time.
Source: Chicago Tribune
