My cousin Mike, last time we spoke a few weeks ago, told me about one of the demonstrations that his union was organizing against the hotel chain Hyatt. Hyatt has recently cut almost a hundred people from the house-keeping unit from their Boston hotel, and replaced them with house-keepers at nearly half the wages and no health benefits. "Bring Back the Hyatt 100" was the name of the organization as well as an obvious mantra.
Gov. Patrick of Massachusetts supports the Hyatt 100, and has called for a possible boycott of the Hyatt chain aimed at getting these workers back to work.
The demonstration Mike was telling me about had their activists getting a large group together to go to Chicago, where the Park Hyatt is the scene for negotiations, and in an act if non-violent civil-disobedience, getting arrested for the day. This was a tricky thing, he was telling me, because while the younger people in the group were all for it--getting arrested--some of the older church-going grandmotherly aged ladies had to be persuaded, but eventually some of them even joined in.
It made some of the news outlets...here are some links: New York Times, Chicago Ttibune, and the Boston Globe.
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