Union Violence

As a teenage college student in New York City, I worked in hotels to support myself. Several, though not all, of the hotels I worked in, were unionized. In some hotels, if a department was small, it wasn't required to join the union. The result was a few dollars less an hour than at other jobs, but the job itself was more pleasant. At union jobs, we paid so much in dues every year, that I used to wonder what the point was of the union. They must have taken a lot of the extra salary they negotiated for us right back into their own coffers.

While working in union hotels, I heard stories from a Latina who'd worked in the same job, supporting her children, for about twenty years, that when there was a strike, you had to strike, too, or the union people would harass you. They'd spit, yell, scold, scream. The strike fund was $100 for one week. After that, you were on your own financially.

It all seemed so bizarre at the time. I just needed money for school. I didn't care about strikes.

I never had to strike. My hotel career didn't last long.

(In The Netherlands you can't even get a job in a hotel if you don't go to school, and get a special kind of training, to work in one. Even if you come from another country where you worked in hotels for decades, they won't hire you here without a hotel school diploma. When I worked in hotels, only people in management had gone to college, and not necessarily to study about the hotel industry. I'll never get the Dutch system. You need special training to clean houses here. Funny that, going to school to learn how to handle a mop.)

Union violence is something that's starting to hit closer to home. My brother, who just got a job in a New York hotel, had his life threatened by a unionist several days ago. When he went to the police to report the threat, they treated him belligerently, sent him to several different precincts, refusing to take him seriously. My brother (college educated) didn't know much about unions or striking before he took the job. He's now learning a hard and undeserved lesson. I hope he will find another job soon. One where his life isn't being threatened.