The Bears at Congress
Last week Windy City Times ran a letter from Queer to the Left criticizing the Great Lakes Bears for inviting people to rent rooms at the Congress Hotel for this year's Bears Pride X event on Memorial Day weekend despite the fact that the hotel's workers are on strike.
The following is from the Bears:
The Great Lakes Bears would like to take a few moments to clarify our position in Congress Plaza labor dispute. It's true that Bear Pride X is inviting people to stay at the Congress Plaza for our event held May 27-31, 2004. Queer to the Left made public claims that we have ignored offers and refused to have a discussion about this issue. These claims are completely false. We have engaged in a discussion with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) Local 1. We have also entertained offers from other hotels. Our organization evaluated the benefits and the problems of each alternative. Of the four proposed alternative hotels, only one was able to approach the number of rooms needed for our attendees. We initiated negotiations with that hotel, they then matched the Congress Plaza rates. After careful discussion and debate, we chose to keep our contract with the Congress Plaza. Any hotel change would have created tremendous problems for our attendees and our organization. In regards to the conditions at the Congress Plaza: We have visited the property several times. We also found the following published in both The Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune: Concerning to the 68 complaints 'The hotel is considered to be substantially compliant,' said Jennifer Hoyle, spokeswoman for the city's Law Department. And 'There was nothing dangerous or hazardous,' Hoyle also said. Also the hotel agreed to pay $2,500 to cover the city's expense in bringing the complaint to court.
Additionally, the Congress Plaza has informed us that they have four unions, and the three remaining unions continue working without issue. We would like to make it clear, that our attendees are not required to stay at the Congress Plaza. It is in our plan to update our Web site to include information about the labor dispute. We strive to give our attendees the best possible value for the whole event. The average room rate at other comparable hotels is $50 more than the rate we've negotiated. This allows our attendees to bring down their total cost $150-$200. That alone will allow more people to enjoy Bear Pride X. The Great Lakes Bears and Bear Pride X hope that both HERE Local 1 and the Congress Plaza are able to resolve the issues and reach a mutually beneficial agreement.
Larry Pinnell, Bear Pride Chairman
Great Lakes Bears
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Whole Foods and the Center
Local 881 of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) are very concerned about the development of a Whole Foods Store at the proposed Center on Halsted (formerly Horizons). Whole Foods is a non-union employer that fails to compensate their employees at the prevailing rate standard in the Chicagoland retail grocery industry.
We understand that the developers of the Center are interested in a long-term retail anchor for this project. However, due to the amount of public funds being expended on this development, and the fact that we have common interest and goals in promoting fairness and equality, we believe that Whole Foods should be held to fair employment standards. Whole Foods should allow the employees to fairly decide on union representation, and not interfere in the employees' right to do so.
Whole Foods falls short of guaranteeing basic rights for working men and women. Without a neutrality agreement, the employees of Whole Foods have little chance of gaining the standard benefits and protections enjoyed by thousands of retail grocery employees in the City of Chicago. Only with a Union contract can workers feel secure in their rights on the job.
Ronald E. Powell
President Local 881 and
UFCW International Vice President
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Abbott Protest
Last week, Windy City Times publisher and managing editor Tracy Baim used her 'Views' column to challenge AIDS Healthcare Foundation's (AHF) actions concerning the publication of an advertisement that AHF had run—and hoped to continue to run—in Windy City. The ad was a parody that spoofed a current Abbott Laboratories patient assistance program advertisement regarding the drug giant's recent 400% price hike on Norvir, its key AIDS drug. ...
In trying to fend off these attacks, Abbott appears to be throwing its Goliath-sized weight around against David-sized publications. AHF also has run this ad in a gay publication in Los Angeles. After the ad ran, AHF received reports that Abbott will pull its own Norvir Patient Assistance Program print advertisement [the ad that gave rise to the parody] from an upcoming issue if that issue were also to include AHF's Norvir parody ad.
With respect to the Windy City Times, AHF's ad ran in two issues. Only after it ran in the second edition did the Times indicate that there was a problem with the ad. For whatever reason, the ad was acceptable a second time, but not a third.
AHF has no dispute with the Times, and commends it for its coverage of the Norvir price increase, including the announcement of the price hike protest at Abbott Laboratories Friday, April 23 8 a.m. AHF believes that the Times is caught in the middle of a dispute between Abbott and the AIDS community, state Attorneys General, and pharmaceutical activists.
AHF stands by its statements. The ad does not incorporate Abbott's logo but parodies the ideas expressed in Abbott's ad.
Parody is a well known and legally protected form of expression covered by the First Amendment ... .
[As WCT has stated to AHF several times, the 'insert'—not an ad, but a physical insert—was delivered to our printer direct and therefore ran without WCT seeing it the first time. AHF sent twice as many inserts as was needed and our printer had to deal with these; we told this to AHP representatives and they said would pay for the problem caused by this, but the insert did not run a second time. If AHF misunderstood this, we can discuss this part further. Within two days of the first insert, WCT told AHF they could run the actual content of their own ads, about the price hikes, but they could not run the images belonging to Abbott. AHF re-submitted the same basic material two weeks later, and WCT again said please simply remove those images. Instead, AHF issued a press release saying we were bowing to pressure. AHF may want to fight this battle in the courts on parody, but WCT's own experience with this legal concept left us no choice but to refuse the ad. At no time did WCT receive pressure from Abbott not to run these ads. We offered AHF the ability to run the content about the protests, without the copyrighted images. They chose not to re-submit, but rather to issue a press statement mis-representing what happened with WCT.]
