by Joeb in Politics, Tufts, Workers' Rights
Posted on September 23, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Last Modified on October 3, 2009 at 5:05 pm
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It’s time we began to collect issues for 2010. One of the more precious is today’s email from Charlotte Golar Richie, on Deval Patrick’s Committee (not yet on the web page but in most “loyalist” mailboxes an hour ago). She, in turn, forward’s Patrick’s letter to the Chair of Hyatt, bemoaning the third party contracts that cut the fringe benefits of hotel janitorial staff in the Hyatt chain. Until or unless Hyatt changes their tune about outsourcing support staff, he says, “I will direct all state employees not to use Hyatt when traveling or for other purposes for the foreseeable future.”
What state functions are or have anything to do with Tufts, where they’ve done the same thing, twice? What functions at other universities where they outsource that support service? Why are hotels so distinctive? Might the state stall all tuition checks or loan accounts to Tufts for 90 days or so? What banks currently bank for Hyatt? Are they the same banks who handle Tufts?
Or is this just because of Deval and the Hotel Workers Union? Either way, it’s a crock if he handles one group one way and another, guilty of precisely the same act (and, in Tufts case, compounded by two different outsourcing contracts over three years).
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Patrick cannot run the Commonwealth and now he is trying to run private businesses. It is horrible that thoe Hyatt workers lost their jobs but that is business. Is he going to stick up for me if I lose my job? I highly doubt it.
I voted for him the first time and it has turned out to be a HUGE mistake. He will not be getting my vote next year.
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I was thrilled to read that Patrick took this stance with Hyatt!
The massive publicity about this case of outsourcing & blatant injustice probably had something to do with why Patrick acted now.
It would be great to identify other cases of state investment in institutions that abuse workers and do outsourcing, so we could ask Patrick to do the same thing there.
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BTW, the Hyatt workers that were fired after training their replacements were not union members, unlike many hotel workers in the Boston area.
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I doubt the state does enough business that it keeps Hyatt afloat financially. Patrick needs to understand you cannot bully companies into submission in order to get what you want. The only reason he is doing anything regarding this has to do with his approval ratings taking a massive nosedive.
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Amazing how well you guys avoid the point I tried to make: where’s Patrick with Tufts? Tufts has a long standing pattern exactly like that the Hyatt just implemented. For decades they gave all employees access to the social mobility college offers, and embraced at least a community on the hill, if not Somerville or Medford as well. Now, under this new “community relations” president, they’ve not only cut those benefits but farmed out those jobs, assuring that they have a low enough ratio of Latino employees, and that they don’t have to worry about those ugly twists of legal status some involve.
It’s one thing for Hyatt, who can, vaguely, justify their action in terms of business. But it’s quite another for a nonprofit, who pays no real estate tax, to set a path for Hyatt and others to follow. Why no anger? Why no concern? Is it impotence with Tufts? Pfui! There’s absolutely no reason why we – Somerville – couldn’t charge $10,000 for every fire call; $4,000 for every police call; and a host of other charges to make Tufts more accountable. Cambridge does it with its own water system, so they can sock it to MIT and Harvard every time they flush. What is wrong with Somerville? Too timid? Too co-opted? or did Larry Bacow at Tufts contribute a little cash to the Joe Curtatone housing fund?
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Joe, I avoid it because I do not know what Patrick did. I am only commenting on the issue I am aware of right now.
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Janine,
Good to see you keep in touch. There was almost a strike last year, until Tufts bought some people off. Yet there is a long history of precisely the same tactic Hyatt used. And it reveals BOTH the duplicity of Deval and the naivete of our own community.
Because universities are big and have a business, they still ought not play like “big business” as long as they’re tax exempt and serve a public purpose. That is what makes the Tufts case much, much worse than Hyatt, and makes Somerville ignorance of this – and other – elitist and arrogant management tactics so thoroughly reprehensible. This goes back to Denise Provost’s push to tax them. If they act like Hyatt, they ought to be taxed like Hyatt. At least!
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Hyatt did what Hyatt had to do to maintain their business. I will actually stay at Hyatts more now because I see a business caring for their bottom line. Between me and my employees I bet we can make up a big chunk of any lost state revenue. I just don’t see where the state used Hyatts much anyway.
I am good with taxing Tufts too. Not in favor of any tax, but if we all have to pay then they should pay as well.
Patrick is one and done… like his buddy Obama. Two big mistakes.
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Not to jump into the fray a day late and a dollar short on this, but as former capitalist pig who greatly benefitted from employment with a company that kept a sharp eye on the bottom line, I see this issue from both sides.
Hyatt has a financial responsibility to its shareholders. It also has a moral and ethical responsibility to its employees. I think with the fallout from this mishandled, misguided, and unethical ruse they pulled on the service staff, just to save a few shekels in the short term, they will regret, from a financial standpoint, this action. For example, the fallout has already spread to taxi drivers refusing to pick up and drop off at Boston’s Hyatt’s to protests in some other city’s by not only unions, but by other business entities.
As for Tufts, sure they give back some to the communities in which they operate. Is it enough? In my opinion, no.
It has always confounded me why the Mayor settles for such pittence from Tufts while seemingly sticking it to others.
Now let me go pay that parking ticket I got in Davis Square the other day before they stop picking up my curbside trash.
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I agree that Patrick’s threat seems to be more political grand-standing than actual concern for workers’ rights.
For some background on the Tufts situation visit the Justice For Tufts Janitors blog. Apparently, they were successful in securing a good contract for the workers.
Joeb, can you elaborate on which outsourcing contracts at Tufts you are referring to?
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Barry,
If you read down that page, just a little bit, you’ll see precisely what I mean. That contract they had to negotiate is with American Building Maintenance Industries, and NOT with Tufts. Until Tufts fired all those workers three years ago and used still another intermediary – then it was Unicco – all their workers had benefits like tuition discounts for themselves or their families. Such discounts build community and stabilize jobs way beyond what SEIU could negotiate through a third party. And that is PRECISELY the case Patrick had against Hyatt. It’s not just the money – which is all they could get through the intermediary. It is respect and community.
The fact that Tufts so readily sacrificed that community with people who’d worked there for years and who aspired for themselves or their kids to the mobility college implies – even if they never used it – underscores the University’s betrayal and disrespect for the values that justify that university’s nonprofit status.
And that cannot be a balder, more cruel, more regressive and more irrefutable indictment. It’s one thing for Hyatt – who’s financial survival depends on turning over beds. It’s something else entirely for a University to use exactly the same management style and exhibit precisely the same disrespect for the people who keep them clean and manage their space!
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And, incidentally, it is even worse for an opportunist amateur like Deval Patrick to exploit the vulnerability of a Hotel chain while implicitly endorsing the community destruction embraced by the third wealthiest university in the state.
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