Union leaders are slamming International Mr. Leather (IML) organizers for crossing a workers' boycott at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago. Workers at the downtown hotel have been calling on customers to boycott the hotel since August, after a year of failed contract negotiations.
IML claims that it cannot change venues and says the dispute is between UNITE HERE Local 1 (Chicago's Hospitality Union) and the Hyatt. The result has been a face-off between IML and Local 1 over the last several weeks. Now, local and national LGBT organizers are mobilizing against IML.
"They are putting themselves in the middle of this by choosing to cross a picket line." said Sam Finkelstein, an organizer with LGBTQ youth-led organization Gender JUST. Last week, Gender JUST met with Hyatt workers and discussed organizing around the boycott. Finkelstein said that Gender JUST wants to send a message that the LGBT community is not anti-labor.
Chuck Renslow, co-founder of IML, said he supports unions, but that IML has no choice. According to a statement released by IML on the dispute, its contract with the Hyatt includes a buyout option, but it is in excess of $750,000.
Local 1 claims that Hyatt hotels promote dangerous working conditions. They allege that housekeepers must clean double the recommended number of rooms in a shift, that they are denied tools that would make cleaning less strenuous and that they can't get affordable healthcare. A 2010 study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine ranked Hyatt hotels nationally as having the highest rate of worker injuries of 50 other hotels studied.
"Hyatt, in particular, has distinguished itself as extremely regressive," said Annermarie Strassel, a spokesperson for Local 1. Strassel said that housekeepers are not allowed to use mops, but rather must scrub floors by hand.
Angela Martinez is a housekeeper at the Hyatt Regency. She said that over the 23 years she has been at the Hyatt, the work has become harder. Renovations two years ago brought in larger, heavier beds. In addition, she said that housekeepers are now expected to clean more rooms in less time.
"It makes my job much more difficult," she told Windy City Times, speaking through a Spanish-to-English translator. "I can't lift the mattress because my left arm feels like it's coming out of the socket. It feels like it's separating."
Martinez appealed to IML organizers to re-think their decision to stay at her hotel. "We have attended to them very well over the years. I want the IML to respect our boycott because they should know we're hard-working women … not robots or machines."
Rumors have circulated that Hyatt Regency offered IML a small window of time to back out of its contract but that IML turned down the offer. Renslow said the window had the same $750,000 price tag as the buyout option, and that the offer was not to cancel all the room reservations, but rather cancel some of them and raise remaining rates.
"Even if it were possible to [move IML], no other Chicago venues would be suitable for both the number of hotel rooms IML requires and a functional vendor space," wrote IML Coordinator RJ Chaffin in the statement on the dispute.
IML has been held at other hotels before, most notably at the Palmer House Hilton and the Chicago Hilton, both of which settled contracts with Local 1 last week after six-month boycotts. Both hotels were under boycott at the time "out" offered by Hyatt to IML. Union organizers did not name specific hotels large enough to accommodate IML guests, but said that that they had offered to help IML find new locations.
One suggestion was to split IML guests into two hotels not under boycott. Renslow said that is not possible because guests want to be in one host hotel and vendors all need to be housed under one roof. He said that all other Chicago hotels large enough to house IML guests were booked.
Renslow said the only way IML could get out of its contract would be if workers went on strike. "I have the feeling they're trying to have their cake and eat it too," he said. "If they really want this, why don't they just strike?"
Last month, Renslow brought complaints against Local 1 to the National Labor Relations Board, stating that Local 1 was instituting a "secondary boycott," an illegal boycott on a second group in support of another boycott, on IML. The board dismissed the claims.
Cleve Jones, the LGBT-rights activist who organized under Harvey Milk and created the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, contacted Renslow personally in February and asked him to move IML. Jones currently works with UNITE H.E.R.E. Jones said he "didn't get any sense that [IML was] really interested in dealing with the issue."
"I feel bad about the situation," Jones told Windy City Times. "But folks need to understand that it's very simple to get a clause in a contract that will protect them in this kind of situation."
Renslow said a clause that included boycotts "didn't even dawn" on organizers of the event, and he admits that some mistakes were made regarding other matters on the contract. Still, Renslow feels that IML is being targeted by Local 1 because it is a gay group. He feels that other groups booked at the Hyatt have not elicited the same criticism for local 1.
Jones said hotel workers have a history of strong support for LGBT equality. He also thinks that hotel workers and LGBT activists share the same enemies. In 2008, the owner of Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, Doug Manchester, donated $125,000 to Proposition 8, spurring a boycott of the property by LGBT groups
Jones has been helping to lead UNITE H.E.R.E.'s "Sleep With the Right People" Campaign, which discourages LGBT people from checking into hotels under boycott. The campaign has largely targeted Hyatt, a Chicago-based company owned by the Pritzker family.
Renslow suggested that UNITE H.E.R.E. does not care about IML, but only its own boycott. Proceeds from IML go back to the Leather Archives and Museum in Rogers Park. Renslow told Windy City Times that moving the hotel would ruin IML completely and hurt the museum. Still, he does not think the boycott will financially harm IML.
"I'm supportive of the unions, always have been," he said. "But I support the gay community first."
Finkelstein feels those communities are one in the same. He said vendors and participants will need to decide if they want to put themselves in the middle of a workers' boycott when they go to IML.
"The attendees are going to have a pretty crappy time," Finkelstein said. "I mean, there are going to be people outside with picket signs."
