The Mixer, December, 2007 On December 10th, 2007, at a ceremony at Toronto’s City Hall, Helen Liu, a UNITE HERE member and hotel worker at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, received the Constance E. Hamilton Award on the Status of Women. As an active member of the Executive Board and Solidarity Committee of UNITE HERE Local 75, Liu has spoken out about the often invisible work of women across Toronto who clean hotel rooms. Through Hotel Workers’ Rising, she has educated people about the challenges of being a new immigrant, and the incredible desire of immigrants to integrate into the mainstream of Canadian society. Workers at HMS HOST at Newark New Jersey’s Liberty International Airport have ratified their first ever union contract, reports the Airport, Racetrack and Allied Workers Joint Board. Along with standard protections against unfair discipline and unilateral employer conduct, the contract requires that the 280 workers there be treated with respect and that supervisor conversations with workers avoid embarrassment or ridicule. The contract provides for wage increases, two additional paid holidays and reduction in worker co-premiums for health insurance. “This is a real step forward and is the culmination of a two-year fight by HOST workers to gain a union at Newark,” said Joint Board Manager Richard Rumelt. “We are pleased that UNITE HERE now represents all airport-based HOST workers in the New York Metropolitan Area.” At a November 15th press conference, politicians, community members, and clergy came out in support of LAX Hilton housekeepers who filed a complaint and won a citation against the hotel from the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health for violating the Repetitive Motion Injury (RMI) standard. Totaling $14,425 in proposed fines, this is the first time that CalOSHA has cited a hotel for violating the RMI standard. It cited the privately-owned LAX Hilton on October 30th for failure to control exposures causing such injuries and failing to train workers on injury symptoms, prevention and reporting. Additional violations included electrical, chemical and eye protection hazards and a failure to adequately complete accident investigation forms under the Injury and Illness Prevention Program Standard. California is the only state in the United States that has a workplace repetitive motion injury standard. According to the LA Times, CalOSHA Director Len Welsh said the LAX Hilton “did not follow policies that other Hilton hotels followed.” In the same article, Adela Barrientos, one of the LAX Hilton housekeepers who filed the complaint along with the Southern California Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, stated that “they keep putting more things in the room.” The LAX Hilton, located on Century Boulevard just outside the Los Angeles International Airport, is under a national boycott. Housekeepers there held a “Day of the Dead Tired” march through Los Angeles along Century Boulevard, drawing attention to work-related injuries and the need for health care. | 
