Workers at a Tempe hotel have recently exposed their experiences as allegedly over-worked and under-paid employees in hopes of earning union rights.
The workers and a local union organization, Local 631, collaborated to ask the hotel’s management for the employees’ right to proper treatment at work. Political science graduate Maria Hernandez, an organizer for Local 631, said the workers wish to unionize for protections.
“They just want a fair process,” Hernandez said. “That means that they want a process to protect them form management and for there to be a promise of communion without conflict.”
Advocates for Local 631 marched in front of the Tempe Mission Palms building in hopes of raising awareness for the workers on June 24. The event rallied more than 100 people and attracted attention to alleged discrimination against the hotel’s employees.
“A lot of the workers have tried talking to them and they’ve been pretty unresponsive,” Hernandez said. “We just hope that (this protest) really makes them turn around and look at the people in front of their building to see what’s going on.”
Hernandez said a union contract between the hotel’s management and its workers will protect the employees’ rights as they are often protected under other hotel companies such as the West Inn.
“I work at the West Inn in downtown Phoenix, and we do have very good wages and really good benefits because we have a union contract,” Hernandez said.
Yolanda Hernandez, a worker at Tempe Mission Palms of 23 years and a member of the organizing committee for Local 631, said she has been mistreated on the job.
“I’ve felt abuse, stress and not being treated with respect at work,” Hernandez said. “Every time I ask my manager for help, she disrespects me.”
Hernandez said the maltreatment she faces at the hotel affects her home life because she is overworked.
“It’s very tiring and stressful,” Hernandez said. “In truth, we come home and we’re exhausted. I can’t even do anything. …They put me to work, and when I ask for help, they don’t help me.”
Prior to the union’s recent attempt to raise awareness for the hotel workers, Hernandez said she attempted to contact the hotel’s human resources, only to not receive help.
“I hope they really pay attention to what we’re asking,” Hernandez said. “We’re just asking to form a union and a fair process. They should. We just want them to respect us.”
Local 631 operations coordinator Alfinio Flores said people often take hotel workers for granted because their jobs are usually behind the scenes.
“Most of the time, when you are at a hotel, you check in and you never think about the people who are making you food, making your bed or cleaning your room,” Flores said. “There are a lot of documented abuses that are happening that no one knows about.”
Flores said more people need to become informed of what happens to hotel workers who are not protected from workplace abuse because it is a recurring issue.
“There are a lot of places here in Arizona where a lot of workers’ rights are being violated on a daily basis,” Flores said. “There’s no light being shed on those issues…any attention you can bring to that to make people realize the impact or the magnitude that that has on people’s lives is very important.”
Calls for a statement from the Tempe Mission Palms hotel were not returned at press time.
Reach the reporter at aplante@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @aimeenplante
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