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When the World Trade Center (WTC) Marriott was destroyed
on September 11th, 2001, the Marriott Corporation pledged
to relocate surviving workers. Instead, the company found
it cheaper to abandon them. Around five hundred cleaners,
waiters, cooks, and others were out on the street. Many lost
friends and co-workers on September 11th. Some were hurt physically;
all were injured emotionally. Now they faced a new trauma
— being tossed aside by their employer. Hundreds joined
Justice Will Be Served!, a campaign of NMASS and other groups
fighting unfair firings and other sweatshop conditions in
the service industry. Marriot workers got together with NMASS
to protest outside Marriotts, hand out boycott material on
the streets, and reach out to individuals and groups. NMASS
members and supporters, including readers of Sweatshop Nation
and members of the United Methodist Church from around the
country, gathered thousands of signatures on petitions.
We had an impact. One by one, Marriott quietly rehired about
three-dozen of the most outspoken workers, placing them at
the two new hotels it had recently opened under its Ritz Carlton
division - one in Battery Park and the other in Central Park
South. From the beginning it was clear, however, that Marriott
was just trying to divide and silence us. Management interrogated
workers about each other during job interviews: “So-and-so
isn’t a troublemaker, right?” And conditions were
abysmal. One man had his pay cut in half while working 2-3
times harder than before. A cleaning woman said her manager
at the Central Park Ritz Carlton made them clean rooms at
an impossible pace. She developed severe foot pain. Her pay
went down from $17.58 an hour at the WTC Marriott to $13.
Despite urgings by other workers and NMASS, once they were
hired many decided to be silent and accept bad conditions
for at least six months until the hotel would become unionized.
This was a terrible mistake. Later one of the room cleaners
said she felt the manager wanted to force the former WTC workers
out before their 3-month probationary period was up. After
a while, she said, things were so bad, “all the [WTC]
Marriott workers are getting out.” Some quit. She worked
from May until June before she and several other ex-WTC workers
were fired again. Many ex-WTC workers are still without work
and unemployment benefits have run out. Others have found
jobs at non-Marriott hotels but also report sweatshop conditions
- long hours, lack of carts to carry around mops and equipment,
threats of layoffs. Some have left the hotel industry completely
in disgust at how Marriott has treated them.
Originally published in Sweatshop Nation, Winter 2002-2003
issue.
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