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For Immediate Release
November 7, 2004
Mark Weller , (831) 375-2246, cell: 229-2448

Locked-Out San Francisco Hotel Workers Picket Monterey Hyatt Regency

Monterey, CA, November 7--Shortly after 4 am this morning, a group of locked out hotel workers from the Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency in San Francisco began picketing the employee entrances of the Monterey Hyatt Regency. Currently 4,000 hotel workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 2, have been locked-out by 14 hotels in San Francisco.

UNITE HERE Local 483, which represents the workers at the Monterey Hyatt Regency, has contract language that allows union members at the hotel the right to respect the picket lines sanctioned by the Monterey Bay Central Labor Council without being disciplined. The Monterey Bay Central Labor Council officially sanctioned the Local 2 picket lines last Wednesday.

“We predict that the vast majority of workers will respect Local 2’s picket line,” said Leonard O’Neill, Local 483’s Financial Secretary-Treasurer. “Our members know that Local 2’s fight is our fight. If hotel workers in San Francisco are forced to pay for their medical coverage, then we will be next. Our members in Monterey also support the efforts of hotel workers in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, DC to negotiate contracts that expire in 2006, when our contract expires.”

The Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency in San Francisco along with the Monterey Hyatt Regency and Park Hyatt at the Highlands Inn in Carmel are owned and operated by Hyatt Corporation out of Chicago. Due to a lack of progress in talks for a city-wide hotel contract, Local 2 struck four downtown hotels for a limited 2-week period. The other 10 hotels, including the Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency, who are part of the San Francisco Multi-Employer Group chose to lock-out their employees. The Multi-Employer Group has extended the lock-out at all 14 hotels beyond the two week strike, which would have ended October 13.

“The Hyatts in Monterey have been sending nonunion staff to be strike breakers at the Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency in San Francisco” said Julius de Vera, Local 483’s President. “They entered into the fight in San Francisco, so they should not be surprised that fight followed them back to Monterey.”

UNITE (formerly the Union of Needletrades, Textiles and Industrial Employees) and HERE (Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union) merged on July 8, 2004 forming UNITE HERE, which represents more than 440,000 active members and more than 400,000 retirees throughout North America.

For more background on the hotel workers’ struggle, visit: http://www.hotelworkersunited.org/

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