Hotel Workers Launch Contract Campaign

Chanting “We’ll remember in September!” well over a thousand hotel workers and their supporters marched through downtown Washington Thursday. The show of strength by the members of UNITE HERE Local 25 was the kick-off of the local’s campaign for a new contract for more than 5,000 area hotel workers; the current contract expires in September. Surrounded by a sea of jubilant workers decked out in bright red t-shirts and carrying signs emblazoned with a demand for “Rights, Respect, Contract,” Local 25 Secretary-Treasurer John Boardman told UNION CITY that major contract issues are “The same issues people are seeing everywhere,” “Healthcare, retirement benefits, living wages.” The biggest challenge this time around, said Boardman, is that “Half the workers in the city’s hospitality industry don’t have the right that these workers have to bargain for a contract. We need to bring these workers into the union so that those workers have healthcare, a pension and dignity on the job.” After gathering in Kalorama Park, the marchers streamed across the Taft Bridge, shutting down rush-hour traffic on Connecticut before rallying up by the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, where hotel worker Charlene Rogers demanded “The right to what we need. Not what we want, what we need!” Added a defiant Rogers, “We’re not backing down at all!”
-story/photos by Chris Garlock