Baltimore’s Hyatt Regency hotel promises its guests a “luxurious” experience, a sanctuary where they can “breathe easy.” To hear the National Labor Relations Board tell it, the AAA Four Diamond hotel has been decidedly less hospitable to its workers, and now they are being prosecuted for it.
According to a press release from Unite Here, Hyatt Regency Baltimore is being charged by the NLRB with “unjust firings, threats and surveillance of union supporters.” The federal agency had conducted an “extensive” investigation during which they heard from recently fired workers, who reported being surveilled and threatened with arrest by the company for attempting to organize an employee union.
One such worker, Mike Jones, a former Hyatt Regency dishwasher, says the hotel “cut the people in my department from 32 down to six and refuses to hire the temps that work with us everyday.” After Jones spoke out about the practice at a rally, he was promptly fired.
The union effort at Hyatt Regency Baltimore, which began in June, is the first the company has seen in decades. If it were to succeed, it would be a big win for local hospitality workers, as most hotels in Baltimore are currently nonunion.
