One of the rabbis who hosted me at the talk I gave at the Silicon Valley JCC this past weekend asked if I had heard about a certain legal case against a large Santa Clara hotel chain by several female workers. I had not, and we spoke about it and what, if anything, I could do in my “position.”
Turns out that two female workers’ photographs had been collaged onto images of bikini-clad bodies for “Worker Appreciation Week.” The women protested and took down the photos and were subsequently fired.
Now, here’s the deal: I am not a lawyer. I am not a feminist leader like Gloria Steinem (who has been involved in this case, I am told). I don’t know the whole story. I have stayed at this hotel chain’s other locations in the country. I am not looking to take down this hotel.
But what I did learn about the wages for workers at this particular chain of this hotel upset me. What I learned about the working conditions at this hotel upset me. There is a national movement to empower workers and to examine how hotel chains change when they go public, as this particular chain did in 2009, when a lot of changes seem to have occurred.
I simply wanted to share the website I learned about that has more information about workers’ conditions and wages and let you decide for yourself if you want to learn more. The feminist movement was designed not only to empower women, but to allow the power of women to help all races, classes, and genders receive the equality we believe is a human right to have.
If you want to find out more, check this out: www.hotelworkersrising.org.
