[URBANTH-L]RE: UNITE HERE Statement

[Beeman, William]

Greetings,
 
Please understand that I am speaking as an individual AAA board member, and not for the board as a whole.
 
I appreciate the letter from UNITE--especially its cooperative tone, and recognition of the practical realities faced by the AAA in scheduling its meetings. but the August 30 date for the union contacting the AAA mentioned in the letter is most certainly inaccurate. Moreover the AAA board was not alerted to the issue until the 14-15th of October. The first discussion we had together was October 21. With regard to changing the meeting venue, the AAA staff in Virginia could not have acted without the Board's approval.  I believe Bill Davis, our executive director, will be issuing a formal statement on this. 
 
I believe I am correct in saying that AAA board has every intention of working with the unions to insure that this situation does not arise in the future. The suggestions that force majeure clauses be included in future contracts is absolutely on our agenda, as well as other guarantees that will protect our membership from having to undermine the efforts of the unions to secure a fair and equitable working contract for their members. Moreover, I believe we all understand that working with other scholarly organizations to use our influence with hotel chains for the greater good is in our collective best interest; I for one will actively pursue this. 
 
The board has been riddled with frustration at the conflicting restrictions we were under in making a decision on this matter this year. We realized with a sinking feeling that whatever we chose to do, some group would be dissatisfied. We only hope that the AAA as a whole can come together again to plan for a better set of future policies to prevent the further compromise of our professional goals--both in furthering anthropological knowledge, and behaving collectively as ethical and responsible members of society. Ideally this test of our organization will be an institutional learning experience as so many other tests in our past have been. With the good will of our colleagues, it should strengthen us for the future. With everyone's help, we will come through this and be better for it. 
 
Best regards,
 
William O. Beeman
Professor, Anthropology; and Theatre, Speech and Dance
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: (401) 863-3251
http://www.williambeeman.com
(2004-2005 Visiting Professor, Cultural and Social Anthropology, 
Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305)

________________________________

From: Robert T. O'Brien [mailto:robrien at temple.edu]
Sent: Thu 10/28/2004 11:01 PM
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Subject: UNITE HERE Statement



Please see the forwarded message below. Neal Kwatra form
UNITE HERE has emailed this message to Alan Goodman and
several others who have been working with the union.

Best,

R

---- Original message ----
>Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 19:40:30 -0400
>From: "Neal Kwatra" <nkwatra at hereunion.org> 
>Subject: Statement 
>To: agoodman at hampshire.edu, Paulect69 at aol.com,
robrien at temple.edu, epd2 at psu.edu, kathryn.clancy at yale.edu,
borofsky at hpu.edu
>Cc: nkwatra at hereunion.org, nkwatra at igc.org
>
>I am Neal Kwatra, a coordinator in the Strategic Affairs
>Department with UNITE HERE, the Union that represents the
>locked out workers in San Francisco.
>
>Leaders and members of the AAA have asked me to address
>some of the issues your organization has been debating
>over the last week.
>
>We sincerely appreciate the AAA for not crossing the
>picket line and moving the convention out of San
>Francisco, however, we would have preferred a different
>outcome than the contract swap with Hilton in Atlanta.
>
>Thank you for all your hard work on this issue, our
>members in San Francisco and throughout the country truly
>appreciate your support and solidarity. The best way to
>support our locked out members in this struggle and
>long-term, is to work with us and other organizations on a
>long-term program to level the playing field between
>multinational hotel corporations and their workers.
>
>The link below will give you an opportunity to better
>understand the issues our members are so courageously
>fighting for in San Francisco.
>
>http://www.unitehere2.org/issues.html
>
>I think it is important to provide you with some of the
>history of our efforts to arrive at a solution that would
>work for the AAA, its members and for the thousands of
>locked out hotel workers on the streets in San Francisco,
>who are without livelihood for the duration of the
>lockout.
>
>Our Union initially reached out to the AAA on August 30.
>We offered to work with your organization on alternative
>locations that would be of minimal disruption (San Jose).
> Because we have experience working with other groups, in
>the context of labor disputes, we offered to work with
>your staff on the liability issues as well.  We offered to
>work in partnership to come up with a mutually beneficial
>situation for the AAA and our members in San Francisco.
>Unfortunately, we were never able to advance the
>conversation with your staff.
>
>The first time anyone in the leadership or staff of the
>AAA reached out to our Union to discuss this situation was
>early last week when I received a call from
>President-elect Alan Goodman.  He was very clear that his
>goal was to work with UNITE HERE in a constructive fashion
>to support our locked out members in SF, while
>simultaneously finding a viable solution for the AAA.
>
>Despite good-faith efforts on his part to explore mutually
>beneficial options like San Jose, another school of
>thought prevailed. Alan Goodman has been a helpful partner
>in our collective efforts to support the locked out
>workers in SF and I look forward to working with him and
>others within the AAA as the struggle for hotel worker
>justice continues.
>
>The AAA has an enormous amount of power in its
>relationships with corporations like Hilton. For the
>Hiltons and Marriotts of the world, what matters most is
>maintaining the AAA as a long-term client; they want your
>business year-after-year. They are too smart and savvy to
>risk severing a relationship with a key customer like the
>AAA over a situation like the one in San Francisco. In the
>big picture, $1.2 million is not what is important to
>them; a very long and very profitable relationship with
>the AAA and other academic organizations is more important
>to them in the long run than $1.2 million in the short
>term.  Additionally, in a competitive marketplace they
>cannot afford a reputation as a company that sues its
>customers. 
>
>For an organization whose scholarship and research often
>focuses on power relationships, your organization made a
>decision, in my opinion, that did not take into account
>the power-you have as an organization-in your relationship
>with Hilton.
>
>Having said that, we are especially grateful to the AAA
>members, leaders and activists who galvanized support
>among the membership and who lead the effort to convince
>the AAA's leadership that crossing a picket line in SF was
>completely antithetical to everything your organization
>stands for.
>
>Many people have asked what the AAA can do moving forward
>to support the hotel workers struggle in SF and around the
>country.  Given your unique relationship with the Hilton
>Corporation, concrete steps the AAA can take that would
>have a dramatic impact on the struggle of hotel workers in
>this country include:
>
>·      ensuring that your staff has strong "force majeure"
>language in your hotel contracts, to address labor
>disputes.  You should never have to decide between the
>risk of litigation and crossing boycott or picket lines.
>We can work with the AAA on suggested ?force majeure?
>contract language.
>
>·      a wholesale reexamination of your relationship with
>Hilton Hotels. In order for there to be some lasting
>impact of your move out of San Francisco, Hilton needs to
>understand that a swap to Atlanta is not where the issue
>ends. It is my understanding that you are scheduled to be
>back at the San Francisco Hilton in 2006 and 2008, but you
>are not contractually obligated beyond that.  We have very
>concrete ideas about what you can do with Hilton to have a
>broader impact on the current and long term struggle for
>justice for workers in the hotel industry and we would
>welcome the opportunity to work with all of you on those
>ideas.
>
>
>We are working with many other academic organizations
>(Sociologists, Geographers, American Studies and others)
>and progressive groups (women's, civil rights, immigrant
>rights, religious) on a coordinated program to deal with
>the hotel industry. Your organization and others like it
>represent hundreds of millions of dollars in economic
>activity for these hotel corporations. We need to work
>together as a cohesive, progressive movement to affect
>real change in the relationship between these corporations
>and workers in the hotel industry.
>
>Si Se Puede!
>
>FYI- for those attending the meeting in Atlanta, the Hyatt
>Regency is currently our only union-hotel in Atlanta. 
>
>Hyatt Regency Atlanta
>265 Peachtree Street North East
>Atlanta, GA 30303
>Phone: (404) 577-1234
>
>For those of you who want to make a contribution to our
>locked out members in San Francisco, here is the
>information:
>
>Local 2 Solidarity Fund
>UNITE HERE! Local 2
>209 Golden Gate Avenue
>San Francisco, CA 94102
>
>
>In Solidarity,
>Neal Kwatra
>Strategic Affairs Department
>UNITE HERE
>
>
> 
Robert T. O'Brien
AAAUnite Ad Hoc Committee
http://AAAUnite.blogspot.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/aaaunite/
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Anthropology
Temple University
robrien at temple.edu
215-803-5181

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