Workers at Hyatt Regency announce union campaign

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Workers at a downtown Buffalo hotel have announced a union effort, they said in a news conference Wednesday.

The group of workers are employed at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo, located in Fountain Plaza.

Workers claim that they have been quietly working on a union effort for months and that when they went public to management over the summer, they were met by union-busting efforts.

“I think the initial impetus for organizing a union was to find a way that we could have a voice,” said Luke Sills, a front desk staff member. “To sort of make the things better that we know need to be better and really try to make our jobs better, and try to make the jobs of our managers better.”

He added that the necessary changes would make the guest experience at the hotel better.

Workers accuse hotel management of using intimidation tactics, using threats, firing workers and discouraging workers from being a part of the union. The union has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, including an unfair labor practice charge alleging the hotel violated the NLRB act in connection to coercive conduct and illegal retaliation.

They also accuse the hotel of using surveillance cameras to monitor workers, as well as monitoring their social media pages.

State Senator Sean Ryan is backing the union and its workers.

“We know through our data that unionized workers get paid more, have better benefits, stay in their jobs longer and have a better quality of work life,” Ryan said. “That’s the economy that we’re trying to build in New York State and that’s what’s happening here.”

Ryan added that workers at hotels in other cities such as Albany and Pittsburgh are unionized, but many hotels in Buffalo are not. He said there are conferences and conventions that will not do business in Buffalo because of a lack of unionized hotels that attendees can stay at.

“They’ll tell you: it leads to a better workforce, it leads to people staying in their jobs longer, they dig into their jobs,” he said. “What we want at the end of the day is that everybody who works in the hospitality industry is paid a wage they can live on and they can support their family on.”

The hotel was purchased in 2021 by real estate developer Doug Jemal, whose development company owns several other buildings throughout the city as well as in Washington, D.C.

The unionization attempts locally come just over a month after more than 10,000 hotel housekeepers in eight cities, including Honolulu, Boston, Seattle, San Jose and San Diego, walked off.

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Aidan Joly joined the News 4 staff in 2022. He is a graduate of Canisius College. You can see more of his work here.

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