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NEWS & LETTERS, July 2004One year later, Congress Hotel strikers hold the lineChicago--Over 1,000 people came to demonstrate in support of the Congress Hotel workers on June 15, which marked one year since the strike against wage cuts at the hotel began. The strikers themselves were joined by members of the National Interfaith Committee and workers in AFSCME, SAG-AFTRA, Communications Workers, Teamsters, Carpenters, Electrical Workers, Service Employees, Textile Workers and ACORN, among others. Twelve were arrested on Michigan Avenue in a peaceful civil disobedience. According to Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 1, the Congress Hotel has lost over $1 million and is lowering rates to attract business. There is no sign of an agreement. The previous week we spent time with the Congress picketers. The Booksellers Expo was taking place that week, and a number of publishers had booked rooms in the Congress Hotel. This is unfortunate, and a lot of the publishing company folks seemed quite embarrassed and sheepish when they found out that they were crossing a picket line. It is too bad that what became a classic example of intellectuals ignoring the needs of workers couldn't have been changed, with a little more foresight, into a unity where resentment and embarrassment were replaced by solidarity and insight. This is one case where the practicality of "breaking down the division between mental and manual labor" should be more than apparent. Henry Miller, who spent 26 years as a bartender at the hotel, kept the heat on them. "They don't care! When you get a cheap deal and you're cheap, you're gonna be cheap. You're gonna lay down with the fleas!" He said to one guy, "Don't blame me when those fleas start biting your wife and you've gotta explain it to her." Veronica, a picket leader from HERE, said that they were receiving at least 500 complaints from the hotel guests about bugs coming out of their towels, bad odors, blood and other stains on sheets, elevators not working. "One day," she said, "there was a huge cockroach sitting right in one of the front windows. We would take people over to show them it in the window." One young worker, José, a houseman at the Congress, was very eloquent on the meaning of this yearlong strike for him: "When I started working here, everything was okay, but after September 11 everything went down. They said that business was down, but this was just an excuse to make more money. The rich are like that, they have enough money but still want more. Last year they cut our salary 7%. Why? "Some people say to me, you have another job now--why do you still come here? But I have a mission here. I began this strike and I'm going to end this strike. It's not easy to be working full time and picketing, but almost all of the workers who have found other jobs do this. Last winter it was difficult to be out here, but we are still here. We are strong and we're ready to fight, ready to scream, ready to say, 'Scabs, you're traitors!'" --Strike supporters |
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