Progress Illinois

Nearly a month after their multi-year contract expired and with no agreement in sight, 6,000 Chicago-based hotel workers represented by UNITE-HERE Local 1 decided yesterday it was time to raise their profile. In a dramatic and peaceful act of protest, 22nd Ward Ald. Ric Munoz (chief sponsor of the city's pending right-to-know notification law), union advocates, and roughly 200 hospitality workers blocked traffic near the Magnificent Mile at the height of rush hour to protest proposed wage and health coverage cuts. Another 700 workers and supporters cheered on as police slowly escorted the sit-in participants to police buses for processing. (Those arrested face minimum fines of $90 for failure to exercise due care by sitting in a roadway.) Watch the dramatic scene unfold:

While the location -- in front of the Park Hyatt, just steps from the Old Water Tower -- succeeded in attracting significant media attention, that was not the only motivating factor. Hyatt Regency is perhaps the largest and most influential hotel operator in Chicago; how they treat their employees effects chains across the city. They laid off 19.5 percent of their workforce between November 2008 and March 2009 and forced the remaining staff to work overtime to cover the lost hours, as employee Francine Jones explained earlier this month.  Now, UNITE-HERE officials say Hyatt is requiring that employees work 120 hours a month in order to qualify for health insurance, which would disqualify almost half of their workers.

Meanwhile, the hotel chain fired 98 members of its housekeeping staff at three Boston-area hotels and replaced them with lower-paid, subcontracted workers, forcing Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick to call on state employees to boycott the chain. The Chicago-based local decided to stand in solidarity with their East Coast colleagues and raise awareness about the incident so as to ensure the same actions aren't taken here.

The Sun-Times' Sandra Guy talked to Hyatt vice president John Schafer yesterday, who said a recession-fueled dip in tourism has cut into the company's bottom line. "That’s about an 8 percent drop in the occupancy rate, year-to-date, as of the end of July, even after taking into account an increase in hotel-room supply." Hotel owners throughout the region have experienced similar declines -- Smith Travel Research Inc. estimates that occupancies at downtown hotels fell to 64 percent through the end of July, the lowest level since 2002. As a result, an estimated 2,000 hotel workers have lost their jobs in the past 12 months.

UNITE-HERE does not dispute that the tourism industry has taken a hit. But because the union is working on a multi-year contract, cutting into benefits and wages now means staff will be seriously underpaid when business rebounds. They also point out that when profits peaked, the hotels did not provide workers with raises or bonuses -- they honored the contract as originally signed.

"These companies are greedy and they decide where and when they want to try to help you provide a future for your kids, hotel worker Cedric Harris told ABC 7. "They're making money, cutting back on us, and we have to bail them out with our tax money. We're tired of it."

UPDATE( 4:46): Rueters reports that Hyatt Hotels Corp. has offered full-time jobs at comparable pay to each of the 98 workers who were laid off in Boston. The jobs will come with the benefit of health insurance though March of 2010.