Our union campaign – Buffalo Hyatt Workers United

How it started…

In the summer of 2024, a group of us decided to organize a union in order to have a voice in our workplace. We had become frustrated with a number of problems in the hotel: routine short staffing, the rundown nature of the hotel and the resulting customer abuse, favoritism, and unfairly cutting hours. We had also witnessed what we believed was blatant racism and injustice directed toward many of our coworkers – who were new Americans, immigrants and refugees – by management.

We hoped that by organizing together we could help resolve these issues, making our hotel better both for us and for the guests who come to visit Buffalo through our property.

Our organizing came public on July 31st. We wrote a letter addressed to our general manager and Douglas Jemal, the owner of the building. In that letter, we requested that our employer respect our right to organize. Part of this request included signing the “Fair Election Principles”, which outlined a process that would give all workers here a chance to choose whether they wanted a union without having to fear retaliation.

If you’d like, you can read that letter here!

They did not respond to this request.

How it went…

Within days of going public, over 70% of our coworkers in the following departments had signed up in support of our union campaign: food and beverage, front desk, lobby attendants, and the Starbucks cafe.

We also spoke to many of our co-workers in the housekeeping department, but we found that there was a lot of fear there: almost no-one was willing to publicly support the union. We decided to go ahead and petition in the departments where we knew workers supported the campaign. Our hope was that once workers in housekeeping saw other Hyatt employees come public for the union, and saw that our right to do this was protected by the law, some of them might join the organizing effort with us.

Instead, we showed them the opposite. Management responded with a scorched-earth campaign. They threatened, surveilled, and even fired those who supported the union. At one point the anti-union campaign was so extreme that the Starbucks cafe, where many hotel employees had publicly supported the union, could no longer operate due to the firings.

Cierra Gray worked at the Hyatt for 6 years, in housekeeping and as a Starbucks barista, before being wrongfully fired for union activity. The NLRB has found merit in our case that Cierra was wrongfully fired and is pursuing her reinstatement and backpay.

See this release for the list of unfair labor practices that our region of the NLRB has found merit in.

How it’s going!

The good news is that our region of the NLRB has just issued a formal complaint, charging the the hotel with numerous and egregious acts of illegal union-busting. They are even pursuing a rare “Gissel” bargaining order, which would require the hotel to begin bargaining with our union in good faith. The hotel, meanwhile, has made clear their intent not to settle this case but instead to draw it out for as long as possible.

Former workers and community supporters alike picket the Hyatt hotel this summer, joined by Scabby the rat!

That’s why we have started to picket the Hyatt this summer. We believe this illegal and unethical anti-union campaign is against the spirit of our city. Weak federal labor laws cannot force Mr. Jemal or the leadership of any hotel to respect their workers’ right to organize. But we believe the court of public opinion can. Come join us on the picket line this summer as we show Mr. Jemal what it means for Buffalo to be a union town!