Steve Stallone is president of the International Labor Communications Association  (ILCA)  and  secretary/editor of the Pacific Media Workers Guild.

Labor Day in San Francisco would not be complete without a large community picket at UNITEHERE! Local 2’s latest target. Tourism is the city’s biggest industry and the country’s largest hotel chains seemingly can’t resist providing the labor movement with a villain all can despise.

This year, the winner—and still champion—is Hyatt, with credentials that would make Cruella De Vil blush.

Hundreds of labor activists from nearly every union in the city and from numerous progressive community and faith groups came out Monday morning to let Hyatt know San Francisco will not tolerate this kind of corporate bad behavior. They assembled in swanky Union Square, and then took to the streets, a flood of union colors, banners and chants disrupting shoppers and tourists.

For a warm-up, the march stopped at the nearby Hotel Frank, as chants of “Union Power” reverberated in the narrow streets with tall buildings. Wells Fargo took over the hotel in a foreclosure a year and a half ago. The new management refuses to recognize the union that’s been there for 40 years, workloads have increased as staff is cut, and the state of medical benefits and pensions remains undecided. Local 2 has led a boycott of Hotel Frank since, and picket lines continue there several times a week.

Then it was on to the Grand Hyatt. The entire block in front of its entrance filled with a circling picket as the Brass Liberation Orchestra provided a funky musical backup for dancing marchers and chants.

We’re gonna boycott.
We’re gonna shut it down,
San Francisco is a union town.

The crowd then moved to the adjacent Hyatt Plaza, swarming the steps and forming a raked audience as Local 2 President and President of the San Francisco Labor Council Mike Casey explained the situation at the Hyatt.

Workers there and at the Regency Hyatt down on the Embarcadero have been working without a contract for more than two years. The issue holding up an agreement is a “solidarity” clause the union has put on the table. Hyatt workers want to modify the contract’s no-strike language to allow them to not just honor a picket line of other Hyatt workers, but to join it and take boycott action in support. There are currently 17 Hyatt hotels being boycotted and seven in organizing drives—two of them in the Bay Area. The workers have already walked out twice in the course of negotiations, and another strike is likely in coming weeks.

Casey announced the prerequisite presence of the usual suspects—the San Francisco politicians and candidates for the upcoming November elections. A couple of them made their most militant stomp speech of the season before Casey introduced a few hotel workers involved in Local 2 struggles.

Antonio Arenas, a worker at the San Francisco Fisherman’s Wharf Hyatt, said the three-year organizing drive there has stalled because of management intimidation. Union supporters see their hours cut and they get written up for little things that others routinely get away with, he said.

Victoria Guillen, a dishwasher at the Grand Hyatt, told the story about when she got pregnant two years ago and her doctor ordered her to take a long leave of absence. A month before the birth of her daughter, Hyatt management told her she had used up her leave and had to return to work three days after her due date or be fired. That clearly could not happen, especially after the Cesarean section birth. Only the actions of her co-workers and union finally won her job back months later.

Guillen introduced her daughter sitting in a baby carriage.

We were going to name her Cielo Yolanda. But we called her Cielo Victoria, for our fight and victory.

Wrapping up the event, Casey acknowledged that the San Francisco Labor Council doesn’t hold the traditional Labor Day picnic. Nonetheless, he said, there were sandwiches and other food, and he urged people to line up and get something to eat.

Picnics don’t build power. Being in the streets builds power.