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Nearly a thousand hotel workers in 15 cities around the country organized coordinated acts of civil disobedience yesterday to protest staff cuts, reduced hours, and generally poor working conditions. Here in southern California, dozens of workers from UNITE-HERE Local 11 gathered outside the Hyatt Andaz West Hollywood and blocked traffic. Sixty three people were arrested. Since the Hyatt hotel group went public last year, share prices have risen 50%. One billionaire Chicago-based family, the Pritzkers, have raked in close to a billion dollars off the hotel chain that is one of the nation’s most lucrative. But as profits have been increasing, hotel workers have been laid off. The resulting increase in work load has resulted in the Hyatt having the highest rate of injury among housekeepers last year. The Pritzkers have also wisely cosied up to the Obama administration with one member, Penny Pritzker having been the national finance chair of the Obama Presidential campaign. She then went on to join other wealthy corporate investors to heavily oppose the Employee Free Choice Act, a pro-labor bill. In June members of UNITE-HERE Local 2 in San Francisco walked off their jobs at the Hyatt Regency for three days. Yesterday’s nationally coordinated action is the latest in an on-going boycott and protest of the Hyatt group of hotels. Among the 63 people arrested was Maria Elena Durazo, the Executive Secretary General of the LA County Federation of Labor (AFL-CIO). Uprising correspondent Chris Bennett was in West Hollywood at the demonstration and filed a report featuring the voices of Durazo, and many others.

Find our more about hotel workers union struggles at www.hotelworkersrising.org.