CANADIAN LABOUR/AMERICAN LABOUR:

THE UNION HOTEL GUIDE:

Planning on getting away from it all for the holidays ? If so this item from the AFL-CIO Blog may be of interest. A guide to which hotels are unionized, a better deal because it's a fairer deal. The original guide comes from the Hotel Workers Rising website, sponsored by the Unite Here union. My only objection...the guide only lists hotels that are organized by this one particular union. Here in Canada (and I suspect the case is the same in the USA) there are a number of hotels that are organized by other union such as The Nova Scotia Union of Public and Private Employees, Local 17, the UFCW and, most prominently the Canadian Autoworkers (CAW). You can find a substantial guide to the many hotels organized by the CAW HERE. Think of this addition to what comes below as Molly's little pre-Christmas gift.

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UNION HOTEL GUIDE:

Union Hotel Guide before you book a room. The user-friendly online directory helps you identify union-staffed hotels across the country.

Just plug in city and state( or province-Molly ), and the site will display a list of hotels in the area that employ UNITEHERE! members and are doing right by their workers. You also can add the name of a hotel chain as part of the search. Click here for the Union Hotel Guide.

A link on the site also enables you to quickly see which hotels are on the union’s boycott list and where workers are on strike.

UNITEHERE! is working across the country to bring a better life to hotel workers who often are underpaid and who work long, hard hours to make our stay comfortable and safe. For example, the union is urging customers to boycott three hotels in the San Francisco area, including the Westin St. Francis, where 650 workers ended a two-day strike on Nov. 21. The Palace and the Grand Hyatt, the sites of previous strikes also are on the boycott list.

Members of UNITEHERE! Local 2 voted by a 92 percent to 8 percent margin to authorize strikes at any of the 31 upscale hotels in San Francisco. Despite earning record profits over the past five years, the hotels are using the recession as an excuse to demand changes in eligibility for the employees’ health care plan that would eliminate coverage or put it out of reach for many workers.

RESOURCES FOR WORK AND LIFE:

ONLINE EDUCATION FROM THE IUF:

The IUF is an international union federation that covers food, farm and hotel workers worldwide. As part of their services they provide a wealth of information on various topics that affect both workers and consumers. Here are a few of the resources they provide:

INTERNATIONAL CALL FOR STRONG REGULATION OF NANOTECHNOLOGY:

The IUF along with 44 national and international public health and policy, environmental and trade union organizations have launched a call for strong, comprehensive regulatory oversight at all levels of nanotechnology and its products. A wide range of products containing engineered nanoparticles are already commercially available, and more are scheduled for commercial release as corporations invest massively in the technology, despite the well documented risks to human health and the environment. There is no way to measure the presence of nanoparticles in the workplace, let alone test for exposure. The technology, says the coalition, poses specific risks with specific regulatory oversight. The coalition presents 8 fundamental principles that they believe should be observed for the necessary oversight of this technology. To access the introduction to this report, 'Principles for the Oversight of Nanotechnologies and Nanomaterials' click HERE.

BIRD FLU AND YOU:

H5N1 OUTBREAK IN INDIA HIGHLIGHTS PERSISTENCE OF GLOBAL THREAT:

The H5N1 virus, popularly known as "avian flu" or "bird flu" is a persistent lurking threat that could yet break out into a worldwide pandemic. The first people likely to be affected by such a pandemic are agricultural and food workers, and the IUF has prepared a position paper on this issue under the heading of workplace safety. This paper, 'Avian Influenza (H5N1) and Agricultural and Food Workers:Rights,Risks, Public Policy Issues' can be seen by clicking HERE and following the links.

"LEVERAGED BUYOUTS" AND HOW THEY AFFECT YOU:

THE HARSH WORLD OF LEVERAGED BUYOUTS HAS SUDDENLY GOTTEN HARSHER:

Leveraged buyout is a term whereby easy credit is used to buy public companies in what are called "private equity" deals whereby quick profits are made via fast financial transactions that create no new productive forces and often damage the object of the takeover. Why should anybody care about this unless they are a stockholder ? Because the pressure on the credit market and the results of the takeovers mean increased cost cutting-hence layoffs, speedups,etc.- that affects the work life of the workers employed by target companies. Also the drain on credit produced by these takeovers is a contributing factor to such things as the "subprime mortgage debacle" in the USA. The IUF has produced a primer for those who want to learn more about this matter and how it may affect them. To see the introduction and access 'A Worker's Guide to Private Equity Buyouts' click HERE.

Finally, on a somewhat different note:

WHERE TO SPEND YOUR VACATION:

THE GLOBAL HOTEL MONITOR:

Most of us consider little more than cost and convenience when choosing a hotel when we go on vacation. There is, however, another factor to consider-how does the hotel treat its employees. A hotel that is stingy with its workforce will probably be stingy with its guests as well. Also, nobody likes the simple injustice. The Global Hotel Monitor is a website that gives the consumer alerts as to which hotels worldwide have either actual or potential labour disputes at a given time. Best to check this site before booking a vacation. You don't want to contribute to anti-union management, and you don't want to be unpleasantly surprised by getting out of a taxi in front of a picket line. Contribute to global justice and do yourself a good turn at the same time. Sounds good.

Tales From The Little Stalin Cottage,
We stayed in Praha for about a week. The occasion was an international conference of the WSAVA, and, of course, we stayed in the cheapest hotel recommended by the Association. This was mistake #1. It's easy for me to avoid these "recommendations" in a country that speaks English or French, and I've always done such. I can get a cheap hotel easy in such a situation, but here I am depending on an international veterinary association. This was a "screw-around" in Granada en Espana, and it was a screw-around here as well. It wasn't bad in Rodos in Greece only because you simply can't go wrong in Rodos.
In any case we got off the plane in Praha and were approached by a shark taxi driver. The equivalent of $80 Canadian later we were deposited at the 'Opatov Twin'. You walk up to the door, and the first thing you notice is that they have an ad for the nearest detox centre displayed prominently to the right of the entrance. The hotel "catered" to a "student" crowd who seemed to be in town basically for kopana (soccer) games. All the lights in the hotel's neon sign were operating on the day that we arrived. This didn't last. Each day as we came back to the hotel another letter or 2 or 3 had burned out. It was similar at the parent hotel, the 'Opatov' around the corner. The last three or 4 days no lights were operating in the "Twin", and they were blinking out one by one in the main hotel. Nobody seemed to give a flying fuck.
We walked into the joint. No problem at the front desk, but there are a few stairs to carry your heavy luggage up to get to the elevator. We get there. The "students" are having a great time. The "halls" are covered with graffiti to the 7 foot high level. The elevator was completely covered, right up to and on the ceiling. I'm into my "come into my personal space and I'll kill you" mode.
We pass out of the elevator to more graffiti, hallways that have cheap paneling held up with cheaper glue (ie falling off the base) and finally get to the room. We pass a stairway that says "out of order" in Czech. How can a set of stairs be "out of order" ? I don't know. I tried to get in to see what the problem was, but the door was locked solid.
The room was truly bizarre. You enter and there is a short hallway. One door that creaks like the main gate to Dracula's Castle leads into the bedroom. This, like another door leading to another room containing one very stained cot and nothing else, has an opaque glass upper portion. The veneer is even less attached to the walls in the room than it is to the walls in the halls. The toilet is separated from the washroom by a panel about 1 cm thick.
We finally got some sleep. When I wake up and my head is clear I finally figure out what this building was before it became an "hotel". This was an office building during the days of Communism, and the ghosts of a billion scraps of paper are haunting the place. Actually I think they rendered them, added a little brown dye, and made them into the veneer that coats the walls. Speaking of "rendering" all the rooms of the hotel were decorated (?) with framed pictures of old maps. This wasn't just the guest rooms, but also every other room in the building. I wonder where they found the remainders sale.
Like all things the aspect of the "hotel" falls into place given a little time. The clincher, however, was coming back one night. Another veterinarian, from Honduras of all places, got off at the same subway stop that we did. She joined up with us in the trek through the field to reach our lodgings. Yak,yak. Turns out that she was chilled by the local scene as well, and she was very grateful to have company in getting to her room. What is impressive about this is that Honduras is perhaps the most crime ridden country in Central America. If the building in Praha can chill her it can chill anybody.
Perhaps I'm just too stupid to be scared, but I don't think that the lodgings were particularly dangerous. Nowhere in the Czech Republic is. Just very sad.
So this was our stay as the "maly Stalin domek", loosely translated as "the little Stalin cottage". My guess is that a "convert" from the old ruling class of aparatchiks picked the property up for a total of 10 kronas (about 40 cents) and a half full bottle of beer when the old rulers became the new rulers. The owner obviously has no interest in maintaining the place. As long as it brings in a little money it's best ignored.
The subways of Praha, however, were great. But more about this later.
Molly