Failure to Exercise Due Care
[Stir It Up Editor’s Note: This article excerpt is written by University of Chicago student Luis Brennan and was originally published at the Chicago Weekly, an independent publication at the University of Chicago.]
At 4pm on Thursday, September 24, I was arrested and charged with a “failure to exercise due care.” I was not alone, and this wasn’t some prank gone awry. Over two hundred people took over a large section of Chicago Avenue in front of the Park Hyatt hotel, with some seven hundred more standing witness on the sidewalk. Since August 31, around six thousand hospitality employees have been working without a contract. Even in these tough economic times, they gathered with their union UNITE HERE Local 1 and many community allies to make a statement: We’re here, and we’re not afraid (as signs pinned to our back said quite explicitly).
To continue reading this article, visit http://chicagoweekly.net/2009/10/01/failure-to-exercise-due-care/.
[Stir It Up has one correction to the article as it appears on the Chicago Weekly site: contrary to its implication, the hotel companies in Chicago are not seeking wage concessions.]
