Union wants to organize Indy hotel workers

By Jeff Swiatek
jeff.swiatek@indystar.com

Hotel workers in Indianapolis plan to march with state and city elected officials Wednesday to publicize a union organizing campaign at three city hotels.

The march from Monument Circle to the Statehouse from 4:30 to 6 p.m. is organized by United Here, a hotel workers union.

It is trying to organize workers at the Westin and Hyatt Regency hotels Downtown and the Sheraton Indianapolis North at Keystone at the Crossing.

Union spokeswoman Annemarie Strassel said that the absence of unionized hotels in Indianapolis has helped keep hotel wages low compared to neighboring cities with unionized hotels, such as Chicago, St. Louis and Cincinnati.

"This city has invested a huge amount of money into its hotel and convention business," she said, but hotel workers "are like second-class jobs even in the Midwest standard of wages."

The union says the starting wage for a housekeeper at the Hyatt Regency Indianapolis is $7.25 an hour, compared to Hyatt housekeepers in Chicago who earn $14.25 an hour and must clean fewer rooms a day.