LAS VEGAS – To protest Donald Trump’s refusal to negotiate with the union chosen by employees at his Las Vegas hotel, UNITE HERE and the AFL-CIO are calling for a nationwide boycott of all Trump-owned properties.
“Donald Trump’s a disrespectful hypocrite and we stand in solidarity with the workers at Trump Hotel Las Vegas,” said AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka. “His unwillingness to bargain with the hard-working people who make his hotel successful is shameful. It tells you all you need to know about his feelings toward all working people.”
The 1,500 workers at the hotel overwhelmingly voted in December of last year – in the face of virulent, illegal opposition from management – to join Local 226 and Bartenders Local 165, both affiliates of UNITE HERE. The National Labor Board then certified the results.
However, the minions of mogul Trump are refusing to bargain.
Therefore, UNITE HERE is extending its #BoycottTrump campaign to all businesses Trump owns, invests in or partners with – from Trump Tower in Manhattan to his recently opened luxury hotel in downtown Washington, DC to his shopping mall-apartment tower north of Chicago’s Loop.
Boycott demonstrations are taking place today at Trump’s LA golf course and at his hotels in San Francisco and Honolulu. On October 1 and again on October 18, there will be demonstrations at the Chicago Trump Tower.
“Enough is enough,” said UNITE HERE President D Taylor. “While Donald Trump wages an indefensible anti-worker and anti-immigrant presidential campaign, the workers at his Las Vegas hotel are fighting for dignity and respect in their workplace. They voted to unionize, they won, and now the law says Trump must negotiate.”
Wages were a key issue in Local 226’s successful union campaign at Trump Las Vegas. Workers earn $3 an hour less there than do workers at Las Vegas’ unionized hotels. Health care was also a major concern of workers. Unionized hotel workers in Las Vegas have employer paid health insurance. The Trump workers must pay up to $260 monthly.
“At the hotel in the morning we chant ‘No Contract, No Peace!,” Trump Las Vegas guestroom attendant Eleuteria Blanco said.
“We’re not second class workers,” added Local 226 Secretary-Treasurer Geoconda Arguello-Kline. “After a disgraceful anti-union campaign against their own workers, the hotel still refuses to negotiate with their employees. We call on allies and workers to stand in solidarity in a national boycott until Donald Trump, the ‘Great Negotiator,’ comes to the table.”
Photo: Unite Here! demonstrates outside the Trump hotel in Vegas. | thinkprogress
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