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9486 in the collection
Boycott and Labor Dispute at AERA Annual Meeting in San Diego Manchester Grand Hyatt
The question here is whether a major professional organization should hold conventions in spaces owned by people who take offensive political stands and practice unfair labor practices.
From: Powell DeGange
To: AERA-CESJ@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 1:22 PM
Subject: [AERA-CESJ] Hotel Worker / LGBT Boycott at AERA Annual Meeting in San Diego (Manchester Grand Hyatt)
Dear Critical Educators for Social Justice
I am writing to update you to a boycott and labor dispute at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego where the AERA is scheduled to have its annual conference.
On Thursday, July 10th, 2008, a coalition led by the LGBT community and the labor movement in San Diego called for a boycott of the Manchester Grand Hyatt. Since then, many individuals and groups have taken affirmative steps to honor the boycott and move scheduled events and room blocks out of the Hyatt.
Manchester's Hyatt has brought the LGBT community and the Hotel Workers Union together to fight for equality for gay and lesbian couples and the workers at his Hyatt hotel. We will not allow our communities, our organizations, and our hard earned dollars to fund injustice.
· Equality for lesbian and gay couples. Manchester funds ($125,000) Proposition 8 that discriminates against gay couples' and workers' right to marry.
· Equality for women. Manchester's Hyatt forces housekeepers to clean more rooms than housekeepers at the other Hyatt hotel in San Diego.
· Equality for all workers. Manchester's Hyatt does not have a job security guarantee for workers if the property is sold. Some other Hyatt hotels have signed that guarantee to protect their workers.
The facts are that the LGBT civil rights and worker issues involved in this dispute are critical and deserving of our support. In 2006, even without the protection of a union, Manchester Hyatt workers held protests in response to the unreasonable workloads they claimed had been imposed on them. According to a 2006 article in the San Diego Union Tribune, "the nonunion housekeepers say the Hyatt instituted new requirements in January that increased the number of rooms they clean each day from 17 to 30." We have no reason to believe that workload policies have changed since that time. It is to the point that Hyatt workers at other San Diego hotels have come to picket the Manchester in solidarity. Numerous studies have shown that unreasonable workloads are a serious occupational health issue; here are a few facts that highlight the severity of that problem:
In a recent survey of more than 600 hotel housekeepers in the U.S. and Canada, 91% said that they have suffered work-related pain. Of those who reported workplace pain:
_ 77% said their workplace pain interfered with routine activities.
_ Two out of every three workers visited their doctor to deal with workplace pain.
_ 66% took pain medication just to get through their daily quota.
_ Hotel housekeeper injuries are debilitating. Back injuries, housemaids' knee (bursitis), and shoulder pain can lead to permanent disability.
(UNITE HERE survey results)
As stated above, it is also a fact that the California LGBT community faces an extremely difficult fight to prevent an outright ban on their civil right to have legal recognition for same sex couples and equal protection for their families. While Hyatt may officially disavow Manchester's contributions to Proposition 8 as a personal choice, the fact remains that their multi-million dollar LGBT marketing efforts must be seen as little more than sheer hypocrisy when the revenue this marketing attracts is then funneled into efforts that bite the hand which feeds them. In such a situation, we always have the ability to choose not to feed them any longer.
As a customer of the Manchester Grand Hyatt, the AERA is caught in the middle of this contentious labor dispute. It is impossible to predict what will happen under these circumstances and the dispute will continue to escalate as will picketing, demonstrations and other actions outside of the hotel. As a large public association, it is imperative that the Annual Meeting be moved to a different venue so that it members who will not cross picket lines and stand for lgbt equality will be able to attend and the conference will enjoy full participation.
We need the CESJ's help and AERA has the ability to do the right thing and not patronize a business that fuels injustice and discrimination within our community. This has been a highly visible dispute and we encourage you to avoid the controversy and meet at an alternate venue. The American Association of Law Schools relocated their Annual Conference in January of 2009 out of the Manchester Grand Hyatt to another property to honor the boycott and not alienate members of their organization that may not be comfortable publicly violating a boycott called by hotel workers, community activists and leadership of the LGBT community. We urge you to stand with all those fighting against discrimination: San Diego's hotel workers, women, immigrants and LGBT community and honor the boycott.
For more information, please see the attached materials or visit the following websites:
http://www.gaylesbiantimes.com/?id=12573 - LGBT Boycott
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080822-9999-1m22pension.html - Hyatt Waives Cancellation Fees
http://www.californiansagainsthate.com(an LGBT organization that is part of the boycott effort; this site includes numerous news articles and other media related to the boycott)
http://www.sleepwiththerightpeople.org (an alliance of the LGBT community and UNITE HERE)
http://www.hotelworkersrising.org/media/Injury_Paper.pdf (a study by the hotel workers union, UNITE HERE, on the occupational health of housekeepers)
http://hotelworkersrising.org/media/HousekeepingFactSheet2.pdf (a fact sheet about hotel housekeepers)
You can also feel free to contact me at anytime
Powell DeGange
UNITE HERE local 30
Boycott Coordinator - Customer Information Committee
510 410 5154
Here is the AERA position. Note that it does not address the labor issue.
October 17, 2008
Dear AERA Members:
We are writing to provide you with some background information on a matter that we, the AERA Executive Board, and others in our leadership have been examining with respect to the 2009 Annual Meeting. In August, we became aware through an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that Mr. Douglas Manchester, the primary owner of the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Diego, had made a very large individual contribution to an action group promoting passage of Proposition 8 in California. This proposition, on the November 2008 ballot, would amend the state Constitution to limit marriage as a union between men and women.
Although Mr. Manchester is the owner of the hotel, his views and actions do not reflect those of the Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, and the Hyatt Hotel operates the Manchester Grand Hyatt independent of Mr. Manchester under a long-term contractual arrangement. The Hyatt Hotel has a well documented history of inclusiveness on GLBT issues and has been recognized by the Human Rights Campaign, Planet One, and other organizations for their commitment to diversity in their employment practices and toward their guests. The Hyatt has explicitly and in writing dissociated itself from Mr. Manchester’s personal actions and the Hotel’s policies and positions.
The General Manager of the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel is nevertheless aware that AERA has serious concerns about reconciling our major contractual commitments to the Hotel with Mr. Manchester’s actions. The distinction between Mr. Manchester and the Hyatt Hotel is an important one, but equally as important is for AERA to take steps to make clear the Association’s commitment to equal access, equal treatment, and non-discrimination as a matter of AERA business policy and practice regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or religious preferences.
Since we learned of this situation in August, we have been examining actions appropriate for AERA to take that would underscore that this Association has very clear policies on GLBT issues with respect to all of our members and staff. Over the last many weeks, the Executive Board has conferred and, most importantly, we have sought the advice and input of the Queer Studies SIG about ways to make vivid the AERA’s longstanding commitment and concerns. SIG Co-Chairs Judy Alston and Lance McCready took the lead for AERA in seeking the views and counsel of their members.
As you, our members, know, the AERA Annual Meeting is very large and thus the meeting space and lodging commitment at the Manchester Hyatt Hotel are essential to the viability of the AERA Annual Meeting. While AERA’s Annual Meeting spans several sites, our largest commitment for meeting space and lodging rooms is with the Hyatt—70 concurrent meeting rooms per scheduling hour and 8,000 lodging rooms. To put this in perspective, this space is almost half of our meeting space and over a quarter of our lodging space, which under any circumstances makes it impossible to relocate in San Diego. Furthermore, if the AERA determined to break its contract, Mr. Manchester would benefit from our financial liability, and only AERA and the Hyatt Hotel staff would suffer a loss.
The distinction between Mr. Manchester’s actions and the track record and commitments of the Hyatt Hotel is, we realize, a difficult one for many to draw. The leadership of the Manchester Grand Hyatt realizes that for many AERA members it is difficult to separate the Hotel and its management and operations from the independent individual actions of its owner. AERA has nonetheless identified positive steps the Association can take under the circumstances, size, and structure of its Annual Meetings.
* At cost to AERA, the Executive Board has decided to relocate as many sessions as possible into alternative locations, and we have been in the process of seeking to acquire additional space.
* Also, to the extent possible, AERA will relocate receptions and related functions to other properties so that such activities are in locations that do not require members to make difficult choices about attending AERA-sponsored events.
* The Association will continue to include the Manchester Grand Hyatt among the hotels offering room to attendees. As is AERA practice, individual meeting registrants will be able to choose in which hotel to make reservations according to AERA procedures on a first-come basis until AERA blocks are filled. The Hyatt remains our largest room block because it is, by far, the largest hotel.
* As part of the 2009 Annual Meeting Program, AERA will be adding high-profile sessions and speakers to address the challenges faced by the GLBT community whether in the family, the workplace, the community, or the school.
* AERA will make visible in the AERA Annual Meeting Program its regret that the private actions of Mr. Manchester has had such a wrenching effect on the lives of our GLBT members (and all members) and on our capacity to have the 2009 Annual Meeting as we had planned and desired when we committed in 2005 to return to San Diego.
* The AERA staff and the leadership of the Queer Studies SIG plan to work together on guidelines to help meeting planning with respect to GLBT issues moving forward. A parallel process has been underway since 2006 with the Disability Studies in Education SIG and has led to a very productive collaboration.
Kris Gutierrez, Chair of the AERA Social Justice Action Committee (SJAC), and George Wimberly, AERA Director of Social Justice and Professional Development, have been aware of the circumstances faced by our members and the Association. At the end of next week, this matter will be taken up further by the SJAC Committee, with their additional feedback and guidance being shared with the Executive Board.
We will keep you advised about this situation and our approaches through AERA Annual Meeting announcements and in other transmittals like this one. Some of our members may be aware that last week Unite Here Local 30 contacted the leadership of AERA and many of our committees to call this matter to our attention, urging us to follow the same path that the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) has followed with respect to the Manchester Hyatt Hotel. The Association was, of course, aware of this situation since the topic had been raised to other associations that, like the AALS, hold meetings before ours. The AERA Executive Board’s decisions to date are quite consistent with those announced by the AALS (see http://www.aals.org/events_am2009.php).
We continue to be impressed with the thought and sophistication that you bring to matters such as the one now before AERA. Thus, we welcome your ideas and your continued support to making the 2009 Annual Meeting one of the best ever for AERA. From the reports of our program chairs across Divisions and SIGs, the quality of submissions was very strong this year, and the meeting is one we are confident will realize its purpose of serving to advance and disseminate education research of the highest quality.
Best wishes,
Lorraine M. McDonnell
AERA President, 2008-2009
Felice J. Levine
Executive Director
flevine@aera.net
— Powell DeGange, UNITE HERE local 30 & Lorraine M. McDonnell, AERA President
memos
2008-10-16
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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