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NEWS & LETTERS, May-June 2005Strikers making women's historyChicago--The Working Women’s History Project (WWHP) celebrated our Eighth Annual Gala in April. We gave our Mother Jones award to Sharon Williams, a 10-year member of the union UNITE HERE, which represents the Congress Hotel workers, on strike for nearly two years. We also presented an original play by WWHP member Joan McGann Morris, "We Unite Here: Stories of the Congress Hotel Strike." One of the introductory speakers was Linda Sabo, secretary of UNITE HERE Local 1 and a coordinator of the strike. She said, "This has been tough for our families, but we are determined to win this strike as we strive for respect for workers." Sharon spoke on how her faith, husband, children, and friends have given her the courage to continue to strike in spite of people who do not understand and tell the strikers to "go get a job." She spoke of how the hotel sent out people to discourage the strikers, threaten them with arrest, and the discouragement of being out on strike for such a long time with no end in sight. "But," she said, "we look at the time on the picket line as being just one more day, just one more day." In the play the strikers say, "We are doing this for our families, so they will have decent pay, decent benefits, and respect for the job they do. We will not allow them to cut our pay and make it a road for other businesses to bust the unions....[Strikebreakers] work for little money and move on to better paying jobs, so there is high turnover and the quality of the hotel is going downhill--it is dirty." Members of UNITE HERE passed out postcards for us to sign in support of a proposed ordinance in Chicago to mandate that people coming here and to the Congress Hotel know of the strike. The gala was held at Roosevelt University and our partner is the New Deal Studies there. Margaret Rung, director of New Deal Studies, called our attention to the "Our Deal" series of fireside chats to be held throughout the year at Roosevelt reflecting on the conservative turn the U.S. has taken in its attacks on progressive programs. Leaving the gala we looked across the street and saw a dozen or so people walking the picket line, still striking the Congress Hotel. --Sue Straus, President, WWHP |
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