Tenants
Articles acp
Pa'Delante! Local Immigrants Work for their Rights
Tenants' and Workers' Support Committee
February 2002
Volume 39, Number 2
Pa' Delante (Moving Forward) is a group begun recently by hotel workers
in Alexandria and Arlington. We are building a movement to democratically
educate workers to claim their voice and power, to become organizers,
and to bring a living wage and just working conditions to 2,000 low-income
hotel workers--including housekeepers, laundry workers and housemen--
in Northern Virginia. The group is stretching the boundaries of community
organizing by using popular education and participatory action research,
and creatively combining the strategies and identities of traditional
union organizing, neighborhood-based organizing and community economic
development. This approach allows us to draw from the strengths of each
of these styles to maintain anonymity so the hotels are unclear how to
fight us. As the workers say, "…we are Organizers Anonymous."
As part of testimony released in March 2002, the group wrote:
"We are hotel workers in Alexandria and Arlington, Virginia. We
are primarily people of color. We are mothers, fathers, grandmothers,
grandfathers, daughters, sons, friends, citizens, residents and immigrants
struggling for the future of our children, trying to realize our dreams.
For those of us who are immigrants, our dreams are the same as the dreams
of this country's first immigrants, the dreams that laid the foundation
for the rights we enjoy under the United States Constitution. Others
of us were born here but endured poverty and racism for generations
until a few decades ago when we claimed Constitutional rights for ourselves
and our children.
Some of us have been laid off; others have had their hours cut; others
of us were able to keep our hours. For all of us still at the hotels,
the amount of work demanded in 8 hours is nearly doubled while our salary
is the same. Managers smile and offer us a free lunch to let us know
they are cutting our benefits. "There is no money," they say,
but at the same time the hotels fill up and remodel. Although our workforce
has beencut by about half, no managers have been let go, received pay
cuts or lost their benefits. No managers limp home with an aching back
or throbbing knees afraid to get sick. Now, those same managers are
trying to scare us away from our meetings, using favoritism to divide
us, threatening to fire us if we continue to organize. Life is harsh
and depressing. Hotels do not want to give us adequate work; instead
they say, 'Leave if you dare, see if you find another job.' We are terrified
of the future, not knowing what will happen to our families.
We claim and demand our rights as workers in the United States. We
take pride in our work and seek respect, fair hours, affordable health
care, and a fair and living wage. We claim our voice and our power just
as so many other workers have done in this country. We know this will
be a long and hard fight, and we are ready for it. Our goal is having
a job where we are respected and valued so that we can realize our dreams
and care for our children and family members. If not us, who? If not
now, when?
We can't do this alone. We need your help. We ask you to join us. We
ask you to:
1. Help us unite other hotel workers in Northern Virginia to our struggle
by having them join us or by providing us with their names and numbers.
2. Help us research and investigate the long-standing abusive labor
practices of local hotels (particularly in Alexandria and Arlington),
the policies and finances of hotel corporations, local and national
government regulations/subsidies for the hotel industry, and local and
national demographics that pertain to this campaign.
3. Help us inform and create meaningful ties with agencies, unions and
companies that use these hotels as well as those interested in supporting
our struggle.
4. Help us reach all residents in Virginia, DC, Maryland so that they
can support and join us either as supporters or as active participants
in actions, etc. (Please contact us to let us know your preference.)
5. Help us by donating funds to support our work.
From all of us, welcome and thank you!"
If you have any questions, please contact Marta Vizueta at the Tenants'
and Workers' Support Committee at 703.684.5697 or marta_twsc@hotmail.com.