|
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) is currently running a campaign to divest from HEI Hotels & Resorts, as well as to establish a Socially Responsible Investment Committee. The University of Chicago has a long history of irresponsible investments. We did not divest from Apartheid and have yet to divest from Darfur. Most recently though, we have become a major investor in HEI Hotels and Resorts. HEI is the 7th largest hotel chain owner and operator in the United States, owning 33 properties across the U.S. Workers at three of HEI’s hotels are now campaigning for respect and a fair and democratic process to decide on unionization. HEI workers have spoken out about excessive workloads, injustice and exploitation and now HEI has been accused of violating federal labor law. As students, we stand with the workers who are struggling to organize and demand that U Chicago divest from HEI.
To learn more about HEI visit http://soul.uchicago.edu/hei.html and the workers’ site at www.heiworkersrising.info.
What separates this case from Apartheid and Darfur, however, is that the University has a major investment in HEI and actually has the ability to force a change in policy. The UofC's investment constitutes over 10% of HEI's recent acquisition fund, which comes out to over 50 million dollars. The UofC stands to profit greatly from this investment, and must assure that it does not do so at the cost of workers.
What HEI is Doing Wrong:
HEI has reduced staff and increased workloads and now refuses to allow their workers to decide whether or not they can organize or form a union through a card check neutrality agreement! In 2008, HEI spent $98,000 on consultants to oppose their workers’ efforts to organize.
Many HEI workers have spoken out about unfair treatment because of HEI’s cost cutting on the backs of workers. Workers at the Sheraton Crystal City in Virginia complain about the cost of family health insurance at over $300 per month. HEI has also reduced staff levels, which has severe consequences especially for housekeepers. Virginia Portillo, a housekeeper at the Sheraton for 13 years, said, “For each room, we only have 30 minutes. I have to run between the rooms, but I can’t run. Now that they have scheduled less housemen, I have to carry a vacuum in one hand and a bag with all of the coffee and shampoo in the other. Before, these things would already be in the closets for us. For each bed that I make, I have to lift the mattress 12 times. If you multiply that by 2 for all of the double rooms and by at least 16 for all of the rooms we clean, that is a lot. I can’t lift my arm above my shoulder, and I have severe pain in my lower back. Other workers at the hotel have complained about the same thing. It hurts to lie down, so I can never rest. I have to take painkillers just so that I can work.” Delmy Morales, a housekeeper at the same hotel, described HEI’s initial attempt to double the workload of housekeepers: “When HEI bought our hotel, they started the P26 management program.
It meant that we had to clean 32 rooms in 8 hours. Many times they were on different floors – for example I would have to walk from the 3rd floor to the 15th and across hallways too. I came home from work dead tired. They were using us. We were very mad because before HEI we only had to do 16 rooms. They even used 3 temporary housekeepers and 2 temporary housemen to scare us into thinking that they would replace us. There is a lot of injustice and a lot of humiliation.”
In October and November 2009, the Office of the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued unfair labor practice complaints alleging that the HEI Sheraton Crystal City hotel in Viringia violated federal labor law in various ways: threatening workers with dismissal for participating in a union, confiscating union materials, disciplining a front desk worker in retaliation for participating in a union picket line and firing a union leader Ferdi Lazo for his role in the union. HEI has denied these allegations and a hearing is scheduled for April 2010.
While numerous peer institutions have established Socially Responsible Investment committees - many divesting from companies that do business in Darfur and even Burma - the University of Chicago has refused to take action under the guise of the Kalven Report and academic freedom. While it is debatable whether academic neutrality even exists, it clearly does not provide the moral standing for supporting genocide, racism, or worker exploitation.
The University of Chicago has taken a stance by supporting these companies financially. We cannot allow this to continue!
Some info on Socially Responsible Investing (SRI):
The following universities have divested from Darfur (Sinopec, PetroChina, ABB, and Tatneft): Cornell, Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, Princeton, UCal, Northwestern, MIT, UMichigan, Duke, UPenn, and many others
The UofC has yet to divest -- this gives us the distinction of having the largest private university endowment still invested in Darfur!
The following schools have SRI Committees:
Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Cornell, UCal, Brown, Yale, Princeton, Swarthmore, Columbia and many others. Harvard has divested from all tobacco stocks, makes 100+ proxy votes each year. Stanford committed itself to SRI in 1971, and since then has divested from South Africa, Nigeria, Burma and most recently Darfur.
SDS Blog: What do you think?
|
