Every morning for the past month, around 100 people gather before dawn in a Salinas parking lot. They start lining up before 4 a.m. outside Cardenas Market, a Latin American grocery store, to board two white buses bound for San Francisco, 100 miles north.þþThe bus riders’ destination: the Marriott Marquis hotel, whose workers have been on strike since Oct. 4. The group, largely Latino immigrants, enter through a back entrance, away from the noisy picket lines on Fourth Street. Another bus arrives from Modesto, said Carmelo, a former worker who asked that The Chronicle not use his last name.þþFor the rest of the day, the temporary workers clean hotel rooms and staircases, replacing some of the 2,500 full-time, unionized Marriott workers in San Francisco who have been striking for weeks at the Marquis and six other San Francisco hotels as they demand higher pay.þþThe lengthy strike, which has led to numerous event cancellations during a busy convention season for the city, has widened to eight cities across the country and bruised Marriott’s reputation. Now temporary workers are alleging labor violations that could leave Marriott, the world’s biggest hotel operator, open to legal claims if their accusations are found to have merit.þþ
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
