As progressive Rhode Island State Rep. David Segal wrote here last Thursday, a coalition of progressives are using smart, strategic leverage to stand up for union workers.
Netroots Nation -- the annual conference of online activists and progressive thinkers" -- announced that they want to come to Providence, RI in 2011. That would bring $2 million of economic activity to the area.
But they're attaching one condition: The Westin hotel, where the conference would take place, just slashed worker pay by 20%. Netroots Nation insists that must be reversed.
Click here to sign our coalition's petition to the Westin hotel -- standing in solidarity with the workers.
Rep. David Segal is co-sponsoring the petition with Netroots Nation, RIFuture.org, and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Segal will deliver the signatures to hotel management this week, and invite the media.
(UPDATE: Thanks for most rec'ed list. Please keep em coming!)
We're at 1,340 signatures -- can you help us reach 2,000 before the petition delivery?Click here to sign.
RIFuture.org described what hotel management did to workers:
- Management imposed a 20 percent wage cut
- Management unilaterally quadrupled employee health insurance costs
- Management threatened to replace workers with subcontracted labor like the controversial "Hyatt 100" decision in Boston
- Management fired three workers in retaliation for joining a picket line (they were later reinstated four months later - after the NLRB became involved)
- Management broke off contract talks with the hotel workers.
As David Segal wrote, "progressives have exerted smart leverage in this fight." The more of us who pile on before this week's petition delivery, the more leverage we will have.
Click here to sign our coalition's petition to the Westin hotel -- standing in solidarity with the workers.
Thanks so much.