Subsidized Businesses May Get Without Giving Back

(Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation)Jim Bertolone, President, Rochester & Genesee Valley Area Labor Federation,
Assisted by Jesse Lenney, Organizer for UNITE HERE and Metro Justice Council Member

 
On December 11 we celebrated the 59^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Focusing on Article 23, Section 4, and Article 25, Section 1:

 Article 23, Section 4
Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of their interests.

Article 25, Section 1
Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of themselves and of their family, including medical care.

Labor law was originally established through the creation of the United States Department of Labor to advocate for workers in order to level the playing field against powerful corporate interests. Public policy was, until the 1980’s, to come down on the side of workers’ rights to join a union for the purposes of collective bargaining. In the last two decades the forces of darkness have slowly and without a vote of the people stacked the process against workers so that violating these protected rights is of little consequence to employers. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) at the highest level with its political appointees has become an arm of Corporate America instead of a place where workers can go to have their rights protected. Imagine if you will, prior to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, African-Americans being told by their bosses that if they register to vote they will lose their jobs, or that if they vote for certain candidates they will move their jobs to Mexico. That is the current state of workers under the NLRB process.

Last year, Human Rights Watch, which enforces the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, along with 11 Nobel Peace Prize winners, that included former President Jimmy Carter and Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, cited the United States among workers that have lost this important democratic right. That is why we have called for public pressure on Crowne Plaza management and the board at Red Wings Community Baseball to allow a free choice for their workers without interference to choose or not choose a union. Both have been heavily subsidized by taxpayer monies and that in itself owes these workers a right to bargain for decent wages and healthcare. Currently what is paid to the workers in question requires more tax subsidies through social services due to poverty level wages and the lack of healthcare.

The Rochester Crowne Plaza Hotel has long been an important downtown asset.  The Crowne receives many of the local business, non-profit, and religious convention dollars. It has also been the recipient of millions of dollars in public subsidies, much of which were federal monies intended to alleviate poverty, urban blight, and aid our city’s schools. Unfortunately, despite such generous public and private support, the management of the Crowne Plaza has chosen not to share the generosity of its supporters with the employees who make the business possible. In fact, in many cases the same tax dollars originally intended to relieve poverty have been used to underwrite poverty level wages. 

The Crowne Plaza has accepted millions of dollars in public money and other subsidies. They have made use of Community Development Block Grant funds, of which the City gets a set amount yearly. This $1 million could have gone to fund things like the city schools, school nurses, youth services, or housing rehabilitation. Instead the City’s share of the block grant money went to paying off the Crowne’s mounting delinquencies with the City. And, while the owners have failed on numerous occasions to meet their financial obligations in repaying public money, their primary shareholder has added to his real estate portfolio.

The Crowne’s workers are not paid enough to live free of government services, yet in a recent meeting with employees; the Crowne Plaza management team reported profits of over $8 million for 2005. The latest form of appreciation the workers received was a scratch off lottery card, and they must pay daily for parking while salaried employees park free. The Rochester community has invested significant public dollars in the Crowne Plaza, and the Crowne Plaza has repaid that generosity with low wage jobs that force workers to rely on the government for life’s basics needs. 

Considering the $5.2 million in subsidies the Crowne has received and their enormous profits last year, laundry worker and housekeeper Taleea Lee asks, “Why should I have to go to the government for food stamps and health care when I work full time?”

Over these last few months, I have had the honor of working with the employees at the Crowne, who are some of the most courageous people I've ever met. These folks at the Crowne have really blown me away. In a union drive workers find the courage to hope for something better, even while their employer enlists all sorts of tactics to discourage them. Workers also form new relationship and build community among various workers of different ages, income strata, and race. These are relationships built across barriers the rest of our society doesn't always seem able to cross. And workers begin to build an understanding of the forces that affect their lives. It is this understanding and organization that must be spread across this country if we progressives are ever to see our vision of a better world materialized. Progressive activists can not do this alone, and these workers can not do this alone.

Anything less than any worker at the Crown Plaza, Frontier Field, or anywhere else, being denied a complete free choice on these human rights is unacceptable and un-American.

Published: Rochester Business Journal, December 22, 2006