Local hotel workers march for union rights

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080406/LOCAL1805/804060367/1195/LOCAL18

Employees want to organize, citing health-care expenses and inability to make ends meet

By Cordell Eddings
Posted: April 6, 2008

After nine years of service as a laundry attendant Downtown at the Westin Hotel, and an employee of the year award that netted her a trip to Orlando, Fla., Ana Lilia Sevilla said she was shocked and frightened when she found herself in her general manager's office Friday.

She said she was reproached for the first time for bringing up unionizing at work.

"This was the first time I've ever been in trouble," she said in Spanish through a translator. "They try to intimidate me. And it's very intimidating for me because I love working there, and I've always been a good employee.

"But we are people who are just trying to live. I'm young, but I don't feel good about the future, and it gets harder every day," she added.

She was one of hundreds of hotel workers, community leaders, union advocates and others who marched Saturday from Monument Circle to the Statehouse to support about 400 hotel workers at the Westin Hotel and the Sheraton Hotel and Suites at Keystone Crossing who want to unionize.

Stories of hotel workers unable to afford their employer's health-care plans or needing to take second jobs to pay their share of the health-care costs were numerous, along with other frustrations.

FULL story and photos at link.