Hospitality workers union targets major Obama backer in protests against Hyatt

In a further sign of friction between organized labor and the White House, the nation's hotel and restaurant workers union is targeting one of President Obama's biggest financial backers in a nationwide day of rallies Thursday against the Hyatt hotel chain.

Unite Here, the hotel and restaurant workers union, is holding large protests against Hyatt in 15 cities in the United States and Canada, among them Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston and San Francisco, with 1,000 people expected to participate in civil disobedience actions. The union alleges that Hyatt is trying to chip away at worker pay and benefits, using the downturn as an excuse to lock them into "recessionary" contracts for years to come despite the chain's healthy profits, while also overstepping the bounds in fighting organizing campaigns at its nonunionized hotels.

And in making its case, the union is training a spotlight on Penny Pritzker, whose family owned Hyatt for years before taking it public last fall, and who, after years of raising money for Obama, became the finance chairman of his presidential campaign. After being touted as a potential commerce secretary, she landed on Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

"Penny Pritzker gets a lot of credit for being an effective advocate and fundraiser for our president and she advises the president on the urgent subject of the economic recovery," said Unite Here Vice President Matthew Walker. "But to the extent that her own companies may be threatening that recovery, her workers are going to call on her for it."

Pritzker, whose family still holds a controlling share of Hyatt stock, did not return a call to her Chicago office seeking comment.

Unions such as Unite Here spent heavily to help elect Obama and congressional Democrats in 2008, but they have been ambivalent about the results of Democratic governance. Obama installed a former union lawyer on the Federal Labor Relations Board over the objections of business, and his administration is implementing new union-friendly contracting rules. But he has not pushed hard for labor's top priority, legislation to make it easier to organize workers, or for its preferences in the health-care legislation, notably a public health insurance option.

Unite Here, which has been feuding with the politically influential Services Employees International Union, has targeted Hyatt and Pritzker before, including at rallies a year ago to protest the firing of 98 union housekeepers at a Boston hotel who were replaced by nonunion workers whom they were required to train. That episode drew a strong reaction in Boston, where Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat and strong Obama ally, called for a boycott of Hyatt by state employees.

The union says the Boston firings were only part of a broader anti-union posture by Hyatt, about a quarter of whose hotels are unionized. Walker noted that Hyatt recently settled with the Federal Employee Relations Board over its firing of two San Antonio workers who were engaged in organizing activities; the chain agreed to reinstate the workers and pay back wages.

The union sees comparisons between Hyatt's behavior and that of other companies that the Pritzkers have a large stake in, including the credit-score company Transunion and the Union Tank Car rail-car manufacturer.

Hyatt released a statement denying the union's charges, saying that while "we are still recovering from what has been the most difficult economic environment in decades, we are committed to protecting the excellent employment opportunities our properties provide while taking appropriate steps to ensure they remain competitive and successful in their markets.

"Hyatt has been participating in union contract negotiations in good faith for nearly a year in several markets across the country," the company said. "During this time, we have been honoring the contracts currently in place. In contrast to the respect we are showing for the negotiation process, union leadership has chosen to stage demonstrations rather than come to the bargaining table to find solutions to issues important to our associates and our business. While we have come to expect a certain amount of union posturing during negotiations, this delay is unfortunate, and work actions can be destructive to the still very fragile economy."

The company added: "Rather than working to secure contracts for their members, union leadership's strategy is to use these demonstrations to force Hyatt and other hotel chains to concede to union-organizing tactics for the sole purpose of increasing union membership -- and increasing dues paid to the union -- regardless of whether our associates want to be represented by a union."