Hotel employees and subcontractors gather at City Hall Thursday to protest the Safe Hotels Act. (Credit: Justine Landis-Hanley)
As the debate intensifies over a City Council bill that would threaten New York’s subcontracting industry, some hotel workers say they felt pressured to attend a Thursday rally at City Hall in opposition to the measure.
A supervisor at Moxy Times Square recently warned workers from Superior Cleaning Group, who are subcontracted to work at the Midtown Manhattan hotel, that if they didn’t show up at the rally, “I cannot promise you that you’re not [going to] get in trouble,” according to a tape of the meeting reviewed by Columbia News Service.
“Please, you need to communicate if you can or you cannot go. Please,” the supervisor added. “We all have to go, even myself, and it’s a protest. And the protest is from us to defend your jobs.”
Asked about the comments, a Moxy Times Square spokesperson didn’t directly address the issue of the veiled threat, but said that staff attendance was voluntary.
The rally was held in opposition to the Safe Hotels Act, which would require most city hotels to directly employ housekeeping and front desk staff, cutting out external employment agencies.
The legislation has aroused fierce opposition from some hotel owners, who often use subcontractors to fill housekeeping and security roles, usually at nonunion properties. Owners have announced they are mounting a $20 million campaign to fight the legislation. A hearing date for the bill hasn’t yet been announced.
Meanwhile, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, a powerful union that enlists around 40,000 members citywide, supports the bill.
Two housekeepers from Superior Cleaning Group, who are subcontracted to work at the Moxy Times Square, said that they and other staff were told in a meeting last week that they should attend Thursday’s rally to “defend your jobs.”
In a recording taken by an employee on Sept. 6, a man — identified by the two workers as a hotel supervisor — can be heard telling personnel at a housekeeping staff meeting that they need to “do an event away from the hotel.”
“We are going to an event on Thursday where we all have to go, even myself, and it’s a protest,” he can be heard saying. “And the protest is from us to defend your jobs. It’s a protest to make sure New York City sees that us, the hotel, we support you, we support your jobs.
“This is the reason why they say strength in numbers, right?” he added. “We need more people to show we are together, OK?”
The man did not respond to questions from Columbia News Service, despite multiple calls to the hotel and requests via email and LinkedIn.
The Safe Hotels Act was introduced last July by Council Member Julie Menin of District Five, which includes Manhattan’s Upper East Side. It is backed by a supermajority of 35 council members.
“We’re addressing a consumer public-safety and workers’ rights issue all in one bill,” Menin said at a hearing on July 18. She added that hotels “are an important economic driver of the city, and we want to make sure that they are properly regulated in a way that benefits all.”
The Hotel and Gaming Trades Council urges protesting subcontractors to join their union. (Credit: Justine Landis-Hanley)
The legislation would require hotels to apply to the city’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection for an operating license, renewable every two years. To secure that license, hotels would have to ensure that all “core employees” — including housekeeping, front-desk and engineering staff — are directly employed by the hotel owner and not subcontracted from external agencies.
“This law would lead to the elimination of thousands of well-paying jobs and severely harm the NYC hotel and tourism sectors,” Moxy Times Square spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
The spokesperson added that the legislation would “impose expensive operational mandates that would force the mass closure of NYC hotels, which in turn would raise hotel room rates and drive visitors elsewhere.”
But Richard Maroko, president of the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, said it’s a “bald-faced lie” to suggest to subcontracted staff that the legislation threatens their jobs.
He said that existing legislation already required hotels to retain existing workers for at least 90 days where there is a change in management, including a change in subcontractors.
Along with the remarks at the staff meeting, the subcontracted employees received a text message last week from Superior Cleaning — also reviewed by Columbia News Service — that said they were scheduled to show up to work at 7 a.m. Thursday, and transportation would take them to a rally at an unspecified venue before bringing them back by 11 a.m.
In the text message and recorded meeting, the workers were told they would be paid to attend the rally.
The man in the recording could also be heard saying that they would still need to do their usual work after the rally.
“I don’t care if you wait [sic] 10, 12, 13 hours that day. I need to make sure that we clean the house,” he said.
Some workers say they were told they would be paid to attend Thursday’s rally. (Credit: Justine Landis-Hanley)
One of the workers who spoke to Columbia News Service didn’t want to attend the rally, but said it felt like there was no choice.
“I don’t agree. I don’t support the agency,” the worker said, who requested anonymity due to concerns of retaliation at work. “The work is very hard and exhausting… But we need to keep working because we need a job to provide for our household.”
Superior Cleaning’s owner Michelle Leung said she wasn’t at the Sept. 6 meeting and was shocked by the comments to the staff.
“We don’t force anybody to do anything, not even about [the] rally or not,” she said. “This is the first time I heard about that. This is not the right thing and not a legal thing, not a moral thing… This is outrageous.”
Superior Cleaning Group is at the center of lobbying efforts against the legislation.
Documents filed with the state show that a group identified as the Coalition of Hotel Subcontractors Inc. retained lobbying firm Geto and De Milly, Inc. at a rate of $25,000 per month.
Leung confirmed that she is the same person listed as the coalition’s signatory on these documents.
About the author(s)
Justine Landis-Hanley is a Stabile investigative fellow at Columbia Journalism School. She has previously had bylines in The New York Times and the Guardian Australia.