From the San Francisco Chronicle:
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom threatened Monday to join hotel workers on their picket lines today unless hotel owners end a four-week lockout and allow employees to return to their jobs for a 90-day cooling-off period.
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) played an important role in getting the mayor to back the union:
The dispute has already caused the organizers of one major convention to consider moving elsewhere. More than 5,000 delegates of the American Anthropological Association scheduled to meet Nov. 17-21 at the San Francisco Hilton might instead meet in Atlanta. Organizers of the convention said Monday they want to learn the response to Newsom’s request. The Hilton is one of the four hotels where workers struck on Sept. 29 and one of the 14 where the lockout continues.
… The group sides ideologically with the union, and [AAA President] Brumfiel has written that “anthropologists cannot, in all good conscience, meet in facilities whose owners are using the lockout of low-wage workers as a bargaining tactic.”
There is a lot more the AAA needs to do to ensure that we can handle situations like this better in the future, but the SF Chronicle article makes it clear that we are already helping UNITE workers win this fight!
Visit the AAA UNITE blog for more info.
UPDATE: More in the Chronicle of Higher Educaiton:
Labor Strife at San Francisco Hotels Prompts Anthropologists to Tentatively Move Annual Meeting
