Hotel Workers Authorize Strike - 93% Vote Yes

This is a tremendous victory for solidarity in the union, especially given that hotel workers have a vivid and painful memory of spending nearly two months on the street just two years ago, that we have been working without a contract for two years, and haven't had a raise in three years. If the hotel bosses thought that they had beaten us up enough to make us say uncle, they were dead wrong. Instead, it is a fact -- not mere braggadocio rhetoric -- to say that the boss's intransigence has only hardened our resolve to fight this battle through to the bitter end.

Next week's set of contract negotiations will probably tell the tale. As Local 2 President Mike Casey said over and over again at yesterday's mass meetings, the bosses have a business decision to make. The union estimates that the 2004 strike and lockout, and the ongoing boycott of the last two years, have cost the MEG hotels around $100 million in lost business. Just how much more of this punishment are they able and willing to take?

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