Trump and the Working Class ( Archived) (19)

There’s A Boycott Going On At Donald Trump’s Fancy New Hotel
Trump has refused to negotiate with a housekeepers’ union, leading to picket lines at his hotels.
10/13/2016 06:18 pm ET
Dave Jamieson
Labor Reporter, The Huffington Post
MIKE SEGAR / REUTERS

The labor dispute in Las Vegas has not helped Trump’s image as a businessman with a history of stiffing employees and contractors.
The entrance to Donald Trump’s fancy new D.C. hotel was jam-packed on Thursday. Only the crowds weren’t clamoring for the hotel’s $18,000-a-night presidential suite or its $12 M&M’s. To the contrary: They were there to boycott the hotel and hurt Trump’s bottom line as much as possible.

A picket line of about two hundred D.C. workers snaked in front of the hotel entrance, discouraging any would-be guests from getting a room for the night. The boycott stems from a labor dispute at Trump’s luxury hotel in Las Vegas, where he’s refused to bargain with a union that won an election to represent workers there last year.

The union, Unite Here, is taking the rare step of organizing pickets at various Trump properties around the country, demanding that the Trump Organization recognize the Las Vegas workers’ union and start bargaining a first contract. Federal officials have accused the Trump Organization and its partners of violating workers’ rights on several occasions during the union campaign.

The row in Vegas has not helped Trump’s image as a businessman with a history of stiffing employees and contractors. Trump has claimed he’d be a better candidate for union workers than Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“This is a man who has made billions, allegedly, off the backs of his workers. And here he won’t recognize them,” said Venorica Tucker, a D.C. member of Unite Here who works a catering job at the U.S. House of Representatives. “It’s a pretty damn big deal.”

Tucker came out to the picket line to show her support for the workers in Vegas, joined by postal employees, janitorial workers, bricklayers and other union workers from the D.C. area. Unite Here organized a separate boycott at Trump’s golf course in northern Virginia over the weekend.

Tefere Gebre, the vice president of the AFL-CIO labor federation, noted that unions aren’t eager to boycott companies that their members work for. But in the case of Trump’s Vegas hotel, Gebre said, management wasn’t fulfilling its obligations under the law to bargain with the mostly immigrant, lower-wage service workers.

“We don’t do boycotts lightly,” Gebre said. “This is a man who writes books about being the greatest businessman in the world, but he’s afraid of 500 immigrant workers sitting across the table from him.”

Trump and his partner in the Vegas hotel, casino magnate Phil Ruffin, spent a lot of money trying to beat back the union campaign. The hotel spent more than half a million dollars on consultants whose job is to convince workers to vote against the union in an election. Unite Here won the election anyway, by a count of 238 to 209.

The general counsel for the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that referees labor disputes, has said that the hotel illegally retaliated against pro-union workers during the campaign. The hotel ended up settling some of those charges, agreeing to shell out $11,200 to two workers, but other charges are still pending.

Most work in housekeeping or food service, and many of them are Latino and Filipino immigrants. According to Unite Here, the workers earn roughly $3 less per hour than other unionized workers on the Vegas Strip employed in comparable positions.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/boycott-trump-dc-hotel_us_57ffed03e4b0162c043af9ae?section=&

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this post is propaganda, i've lived in Vegas and seen more
than a few union strikes and SCAB BEATINGS...and that was 40 years ago... nothing changes"... if you dont know
what i mean by scab beatings than dont even reply.

And by the way when i lived there i did not work one single day...
i made my money gambling on the Old Strip after midnight.

tRUMPYS STAGGERING EARLIER LOSSES ON GAMBLING CASINOS are legendary, IF HE GETS TO HANDLE THE ECONOMY THE WAY HE MESSED UP IN Vegas and atlantic city were all doomed!