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UNITE HERE Local 878

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UNITE HERE! Local 878 represents about 1,100 workers in the hospitality industries of Alaska. Local 878 members work at many job sites – including hotels, restaurants, food service outlets and laundries. Local 878′s parent union, UNITE HERE!, represents over 250,000 hotel, food service, and gaming workers throughout the US and Canada.

In 2004, our UNITE HERE brothers and sisters created a movement called Hotel Workers Rising!  The goal is to make hotel jobs, good, middle-class jobs.  Because so many of us work for the same big companies, we realized that we should fight for our rights on a larger scale by combining our efforts.  In doing so across state and national borders, we have successfully increased our strength and not only won better working conditions, wages and benefits for ourselves, but also new organizing rights for our non-union workers.

Learn about our current, local struggles in Alaska!

Mission Statement

It is our mission to provide all Hospitality Workers in the great State of Alaska with the opportunity to enjoy all of the benefits of belonging to a Union.  We believe every worker deserves a safe working environment, job security, a living wage, health benefits and a voice on the job. In order to accomplish this, Local 878 intends to:

  1. Organize non-union workers
  2. Negotiate strong union contracts
  3. Empower union members to help lead their union

Office Location and Contact Information:

Physical Address:
530 E. 4th Avenue Anchorage, AK 99501

Mailing Address:
PO BOX 100564 Anchorage, AK 99510
Main Office: (907) 272-6591
Toll Free: (800) 478-4373
Fax: 907-277-8595

Office Hours:
9:00am-4:30pm Mon-Fri

You can receive general information or pay your dues anytime during office hours.

Union representatives are usually in the field advocating for other members, so if you would like to set-up a time to meet with one of them to discuss a grievance or other matter, please call the main office number.

RALLY 9.10.14 4pm outside Sheraton

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OUTSIDE THE SHERATON HOTEL WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 10TH AT 4:00pm. TO 5:00pm WE NEED 1000 PEOPLE THIS IS OUR COMMUNITY OUR FIGHT IS YOUR FIGHT YOU SHOULD BE THERE!

KENTUCKY-BASED COLUMBIA SUSSEX CONTINUES TO HURT ALASKA WORKING FAMILIES

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For Immediate Release: June 5, 2013

KENTUCKY-BASED COLUMBIA SUSSEX CONTINUES TO HURT ALASKA WORKING FAMILIES

Monday June 3rd Alaskan workers of the Anchorage Hilton met with management and representatives of the Kentucky-based Corporation, Columbia Sussex, who owns the hotel. For five years workers have been fighting for affordable healthcare, safe workloads, job security protections, and reasonable wage increases in the face of out-of-state corporate employers. At Monday’s meeting the corporation again insulted Anchorage workers and refused to provide workers a wage increase for the fifth year in a row.

The Anchorage Hilton at one time was locally owned and was a cornerstone in the Community. It was a place where workers were treated with dignity and respect. Once upon a time, for 30 years, the Hilton was good to its workers and helped make and keep Anchorage a vibrant community. That all changed when Kentucky-based Columbia Sussex bought the hotel and has been driving down Alaskan families and their ability to survive in our great State.

Columbia Sussex, owned by William J. Young III, continues to hurt Alaska middle class families by imposing unsafe workloads on workers at the Anchorage Hilton, especially in housekeeping; a profession with higher injury rates than coal miners. Cuts to healthcare coverage of workers and increasing employee contributions further burdens Alaska workers. This five year wage increase refusal is yet another blow to Alaskan workers and their ability to provide for their families.

Anchorage Hilton workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 878, have been attempting to negotiate with their employer, Columbia Sussex, since July of 2008. These Alaskan workers have simply been asking to maintain the same working conditions and benefits listed in their long expired contract which guaranteed safe workloads, job security protections, regular wage increases, and affordable family medical insurance. In May of 2009, Hilton workers overwhelmingly voted to place a boycott on their hotel.  Workers are asking potential guests, and fellow Alaskans, to support their fight by not eating, sleeping, or attending meetings/events the outside-owned Anchorage Hilton until the boycott is over.

Federal Labor Board Rules for Sheraton Anchorage Hotel Union

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The National Labor Relations Board has largely sided with union workers at a Downtown Anchorage hotel in a long-running labor dispute, ordering its Texas-based management company to implement a series of reforms.

According to a 74-page Wednesday decision posted on the NLRB’s website (PDF), the board has decided to uphold administrative law judge Gregory Meyerson’s August 2011 findings that Sheraton Anchorage Hotel owners Remington Lodging and Hospitality unfairly infringed on the rights of UNITE HERE Local 878 members…

Read Full Story at:

http://www.ktuu.com/news/federal-labor-board-rules-for-sheraton-anchorage-hotel-union-043013,0,969079.story

National Labor Relations Board finds overwhelming merit to federal charges brought against Sheraton Anchorage

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For Immediate Release
April 30, 2013

On April 24, 2013, the three-person Board that governs the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act, the federal labor law that governs most private-sector workers, issued its Decision and Order in a federal case brought by that agency against Texas-based Remington Lodging & Hospitality (“Remington”), the corporation that operates the Sheraton Hotel & Spa in Anchorage. The case stems from a long-running dispute between the Sheraton and its workers’ union, UNITE HERE Local 878.

In its ruling, the NLRB found that that Remington has committed numerous unfair labor practices against both the union and its workers, including (but not limited to) (1) in October of 2009, unlawfully imposing new requirements that housekeepers clean 17 rooms per shift, that employees clock in and out for lunch, and that employees who eat the food prepared in the cafeteria pay $1 for the meal; (2) in May of 2010, unlawfully taking away from the workers the Union health benefits plan; (3) unlawfully firing four workers and unlawfully disciplining many others for engaging in activities in support of their union; (4) maintaining and enforcing eight unlawful rules in its employee handbook; and (5) unlawfully withdrawing recognition from the Union as the bargaining representative of the workers based on signatures on a petition that Remington unlawfully obtained through threats and promises.

Remington now has to make all of the workers whole for all wages, benefits, and health care costs they lost or incurred as a result of these unlawful acts, plus interest, and (upon the Union’s request) return to the bargaining table and negotiate a new labor agreement with the Union.

Since 2009, Sheraton workers have been struggling to protect their benefits, their working conditions and their union from the employer’s egregious assaults.  To date, this high-profile labor dispute has been marked by the filing of over 40 unfair labor practice charges, two lengthy NLRB hearings (the first one of which has just resulted in the Decision and Order discussed above), with a third hearing scheduled for mid-July, two meritless federal lawsuits filed by the hotel (one against the Union, one against the NLRB itself), an ongoing boycott, frequent picket lines and an overwhelming amount of Anchorage community support. While workers are pleased with this new Board ruling in their favor, they want to remind the public that their struggle is not over and that they continue to ask the community to boycott the Sheraton until the dispute is resolved.

A copy of the complete text of the Decision and Order in this case, Remington Lodging & Hospitality, LLC, d/b/a The Sheraton Anchorage v. UNITE HERE! Local 878, AFL-CIO, 359 NLRB No. 95 (2013), can be found on-line at http://www.nlrb.gov/cases-decisions/board-decisions.

Sheraton workers demand NO MORE APPEALS!!

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Anchorage Sheraton workers and Community supporters delivered a petition to Anchorage Sheraton Management, insisting the Texas-based Corporation Ashford/Remington who owns/manages the hotel to stop appealing NLRB court rulings  ‘on behalf of Anchorage workers’.

Light the Night for Workers Rights Vigil

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“We call upon this place of business to repent and be redeemed, to turn from selfish and greedy ways to a way of business that benefits all – guests, workers, managers, corporate executives and investors.

I stand and speak to remind us all that the choices we make and the actions we take in this life, on this earth, are of ultimate concern.  The way we live—as individuals, families, businesses, societies and nations—matters to God.  God cares.  God cares, intensely, about justice and righteousness in the workplace.  God judges the unjust; God judges the greedy corporate executives and business managers who treat their employees unjustly.  The Word of God calls out:

Do not heap up for yourselves piles of profits to satisfy your greed; rather, hear and heed
the voice of the prophets who speak the truth of God’s reign of justice for all.

We call upon this place of business to repent and be redeemed, to turn from selfish and greedy ways to a way of business that benefits all –investors, corporate executives, managers, workers, and guests.”  – Pastor Petersen at the boycott Hilton vigil

 

Over 50 community members, lit the street by candlelight, and endured single digit temps & biting wind to show support for good jobs in Alaska, Alaska workers & Alaska job standards.

“A Thousand candles can be lit from a single candle. The life of the candle will never be shorted by sharing its light."

 

A delegation of Anchorage housekeepers, community leaders and supporters move inside the Hilton hotel to deliver a letter about respecting Alaska job standards & treating Alaska workers with dignity and respect.

Solidarity Rally with AFL-CIO President Trumka

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Solidarity March & Rally with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

UniteHERE President Marvin Jones with NW Regional Director Rick Sawyer, Alaska AFL-CIO President Vince Beltrami & AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka

 

 

Thank you to everyone: who helped make this a great success, for your continued support of the workers and good jobs in Alaska, and the worker-called boycotts at the Sheraton Anchorage & Anchorage Hilton hotels.

 

 

It’s been over 3 long years since workers at the Sheraton and Hilton have had a wage increase

AK AFL-CIO President Vince Beltrami addresses the crowd at the rally in front of the Anchorage Hilton where workers have been fighting for a fair contract for over 3 years

 

 

Chants of ‘What’s disgusting? Union busting! What’s outrageous? Poverty Wages!’ could be heard for blocks


Workers & supporters line the street surrounding the Kentucky-owned Anchorage Hilton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Support the boycotts by not eating, sleeping, or attending meetings at these hotels until workers can resolve a fair contract with their Kentucky-based (Hilton) and Texas-based (Sheraton) employers.

AFL-CIO President Trumka speaks to the crowd about how employers like the Texas-owned Sheraton Anchorage & Kentucky-owned Anchorage Hilton, are a cancer.

You can find more photos from the rally on our Facebook Page