Why Do These Hotel Union Workers Oppose Industry Efforts to Get $20 Billion in Federal Relief?
Photo Credit: A major Unite Here chapter dissented from the national organization's push for $20 billion in targeted federal aid for the hotel industry. Flickr / Wally Gobetz
Skift Take
The American Hotel & Lodging Association and Unite Here can't do the silent treatment and wish away the dissent of one of the labor union's largest chapters. A disunited front — along with a strong summer travel season — gives Congress an easy way to reject the $20 billion pitch for targeted hotels relief.
The U.S. hotel industry’s largest lobbying group, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, combined forces with Unite Here, one of the largest hospitality labor unions, earlier this year in support of a roughly $20 billion plan for targeted aid to the industry in light of the pandemic.
But one of the largest chapters of the labor group isn’t on board with that bill — the Save Hotel Jobs Act — and calls it an unnecessary handout to major hotel corporations.
“What's happening right now is pandemic profiteering,” said Ada Briceño, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, the Southern California and Arizona chapter of the labor group. “I'm disgusted. This is a time when American workers and corporations have to stand together to get through and go back to normality for the guests, for the workers, and for the profits of the corporations. Instead, the hotel industry is conditioning the return of these hardworking Americans on $20 billion.”
Briceño claimed previou
