A Five Star Sweatshop: I refuse to be silent
In Issue #46 of New Socialist (April/May 2004), we printed the text of a speech delivered by Metropolitan Hotel Workers’ Committee member Emily Tang at an International Women’s Day forum organized by the Toronto New Socialist Group. The Toronto New Socialists recently invited Emily to provide an opening speech at a pubic forum in late September which featured a screening of Ken Loach’s film Bread and Roses, an account of the struggle of immigrant workers who organized under the Justice for Janitors campaign in the US.
On Saturday October 9th, Emily reported for work at the Metropolitan Hotel and was summoned to a meeting with the Hotel’s General Manager and head of Human Resources, where she was confronted about having delivered a speech at this public forum.
Emily made clear to hotel management that she would not comment on activities she engaged in on her own time away from her job. She was then informed that the price for publicly criticizing her employer was immediate suspension. We can only expect that a previous written threat to fire Emily for speaking out may now be put into effect. The Metropolitan Hotel Workers’ Committee (MHWC) and its allies, however, refuse to be silenced or intimidated by this despicable attack. Within an hour of Emily’s suspension, supporters joined her outside the Hotel for a spirited and effective picket. This was a prelude to a full-blown campaign to defend Emily and a step up in the fight for justice for all workers at the Metropolitan.
Below we print the text of the speech that Emily Tang delivered at the Toronto NSG public forum on Sept. 23.
by EMILY TANG
I work at the Metropolitan Hotel and am part of the rank and file Hotel Workers Committee that has been formed there.
We are here to watch a film (Ken Loach’s Bread and Roses) that deals with a struggle by immigrant workers for justice. Because of that, I⇣want to make a statement about the struggle of immigrant hotel workers here in Toronto and some very important issues that are connected to it.
The management of the Metropolitan has chosen to try and silence me as a member of the committee. I have been called into a meeting and handed a letter that makes clear that any public criticisms of the hotel will mean my immediate firing. I have discussed this with other members of the committee and supporters, and I have decided that I cannot accept such a gag order. If I were to put up with this treatment, no hotel worker at the Metropolitan could ever speak in public or be openly connected to the Committee without the risk of losing his or her job.
I repeat again here today that the Metropolitan Hotel is a five star sweatshop. It abuses its workers and I won’t be silent as long as this goes on. I demand justice for Shahid, a Muslim worker who was hounded from his job by hotel security while his union didn’t lift a finger to help him. I demand justice for the housekeeping workers who have had their bodies burned by the cleaning chemicals they are forced to work with. I demand justice for all the injured workers who are denied proper treatment and I⇣stand up for all the workers who have not been given the breaks the law is supposed to provide them with.
Both the union leaders and the management say that we are making up lies. Is it a lie that Pedro Vanegas was disciplined for speaking Spanish in the kitchen to a co-worker? Is it a lie that a supervisor stood over stewarding workers while they took breaks which they were entitled to, and stood at the door of the washroom when they went in there? Is it a lie that, when they went to their union representative, Cornetta Mason, about this, she told them management could stand wherever they wanted and she would not help him?
The management of the hotel is out to silence those who are resisting the abuses that the leadership of the union has no intention of challenging. Our so-called union representative, Cornetta Mason, is now going around the hotel demanding of workers that they tell her who is involved with OCAP. I refuse to be silent about any of this.
I have a right to free speech and I have a right to demand that my union defend that right, even if I am saying things that the union leadership may not welcome. I think I also have a right to demand of people in other unions and in the community that they stand with me if I am victimized. This speech will be posted on the website of the Hotel Workers Committee. I invite anyone who wants to print it in their own magazines to do so. I am speaking as publicly as I can, without fear, because I am doing what is right.
The Metropolitan Hotel Workers Committee is taking a stand against the exploitation and abuse of immigrant workers. In trying to silence me, they are trying to intimidate and defeat our committee and ensure that immigrant workers have no voice and no rights. When they read this speech, they may act against me. If they do, our response will be to double and treble the size of our campaign for justice at the Metropolitan.
We will be asking for your help in the weeks and months ahead, and I hope that you will stand with us. ★
Emily Tang is a worker at the Metropolitan Hotel in Toronto and a member of UNITE-HERE Local 75.
To find out how you can support the Metropolitan Hotel workers in their rank and file union struggle, contact them at:
justice@metropolitanhotelsworkers.org,
or check out their website at:
www.metropolitanhotelsworkers.org