Association of Flight Attendants-CWA

Hotel workers’ partnership with AFA could impact millions of dollars in the travel industry

[Chicago, IL] – On Tuesday, over 100 leaders from the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO (AFA) rallied in front of Hyatt headquarters in Chicago and delivered a letter to corporate leaders at Hyatt supporting the Hyatt boycott and demanding safer working conditions for hotel employees. Flight Attendants found an easy partnership with hotel workers in their fight for worker justice as both sectors are part of the travel industry.

This past September, the AFA Executive Board passed the Hyatt Boycott Resolution in support of Hyatt workers. The resolution spoke to the issue of union flight crews being placed in Hyatt hotels by their employers while working layovers across the country and around the world. Read the AFA Hyatt Boycott Resolution here. The Board committed to ensuring they will do everything they can to ensure their airlines do not secure agreements with Hyatt properties on the boycott list.

“Hyatt workers do not suffer in silence. We applaud their bravery in speaking out and proudly stand with them,” said AFA International President Veda Shook. “We spend more time at hotels than the average person, and will do everything in our power to ensure Hyatt and other hotel workers have safe working conditions and are treated with respect,” said Shook.

Airlines spend approximately $100 million on hotel rooms for Flight Attendants on work assignments. In addition, Flight Attendants frequently travel with their families — accounting for hundreds of thousands more revenue on leisure travel and hotel accommodations. AFA will actively communicate Hyatt’s abuse of its workers to their Flight Attendant members, and urge them to check the boycott list prior to booking with Hyatt hotels.

Hyatt has singled itself out as the worst employer in the hotel industry by abusing its housekeepers, replacing longtime employees with minimum wage temporary workers, and imposing health-threatening workloads on those who remain. In a study published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine examining a total of 50 hotel properties from five different hotel companies, Hyatt housekeepers had the highest injury rate of all housekeepers studied when compared by hotel company.


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UNITE HERE represents more than 250,000 workers throughout the U.S. and Canada who work in the hospitality, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, laundry, and airport industries.

The Association of Flight Attendants is the world’s largest Flight Attendant union. Focused 100 percent on Flight Attendant issues, AFA has been the leader in advancing the Flight Attendant profession for 67 years. Serving as the voice for Flight Attendants in the workplace, in the aviation industry, in the media and on Capitol Hill, AFA has transformed the Flight Attendant profession by raising wages, benefits and working conditions. Nearly 60,000 Flight Attendants come together to form AFA, part of the 700,000-member strong Communications Workers of America (CWA), AFL-CIO. Visit us at www.afacwa.org.