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Faculty, students from 150+ Universities Call on Hyatt to Rehire Housekeepers

Feb 21st, 2012

Faculty and community leaders with Martha and Lorena Reyes, after delivering a faculty petition signed by hundreds to Greg Penner, a member of Hyatt's board of directors.

Today, February 21, faculty from universities nationwide are releasing a statement with signers from over 150 universities, calling on Hyatt “uphold the dignity of women” and rehire two housekeepers who were fired from the Santa Clara Hyatt Regency last fall. Martha Reyes and her sister Lorena Reyes were fired after Martha objected to the posting of a bikini-clad collage of themselves and other housekeepers on a company bulletin board.  Faculty in Chicago and the Bay Area are leading delegations today to members of Hyatt’s Board of Directors to deliver the petition.

Outraged by Hyatt’s actions, Women’s and Gender Studies faculty from several universities nationwide initiated the petition, explaining to colleagues in a cover letter that, “the sexualization of housekeepers is an appalling expression of power that has no place at work,  . . . [and] it belongs to a long list of well-documented abusive and unsafe practices that Hyatt housekeepers, many of them women of color, all over the country endure.” In the statement signed by over 700 individuals from over 150 universities, supporters call on Hyatt to “reinstate the Reyes sisters” and “respond to Hyatt workers’ demands” that Hyatt “correct the unsafe, hazardous, and demeaning conditions facing them at work.”

To read or visit the petition, visit DignityatHyatt.org.


The call to "Boycott Hyatt" does not include the Hyatt Regency Maui Resort & Spa and the Grand Hyatt Kauai, which have current collective bargaining agreements with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union; The Hyatt Regency Montreal, which has a contract with the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN); the Hyatt Regeny Milwaukee and the Hyatt Regency Cleveland at the Arcade, which have contracts with SEIU; and does not include the following Hyatt hotels with current UNITE HERE collective bargaining agreements: Grand Hyatt New York, Andaz 5th Avenue, Andaz Wall Street, Hyatt Hotel (Highway One Monterey), Hyatt Regency Monterey, Hyatt Penn's Landing (Philadelphia), Hyatt Regency Atlanta, Hyatt Regency Denver at the Colorado Convention Center, Hyatt Regency Mission Bay Spa and Marina, Hyatt Regency on King (Toronto), Park Hyatt Toronto, Hyatt Regency Vancouver, Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill, Hyatt Rosemont, Hyatt Place San Jose, Hyatt Place Braintree (MA), Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn, and Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport, the non-opened Park Hyatts in New York, the non-opened Portland Oregon Convention Center Hyatt Hotel, the Hyatt Regency Long Beach, the Hyatt The Pike Long Beach.

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