A collection of pilot and flight attendant unions representing over 180,000 airline employees has called for a boycott of a prominent Marriott hotel in Boston’s Back Bay region because the property’s owners hired lower-cost contractors from Florida and Texas to renovate the entire hotel.
The unions estimate that flight crews on layovers account for a near-year-round 30% occupancy rate at the Marriott Copley Place hotel, which has 1,097 rooms. The names of the airlines that utilize the hotel are kept confidential for security reasons.
The hotel features a huge conference center, but occupancy has been affected by the pandemic’s ongoing effects, thus the airline crew business provides a consistent and dependable source of revenue for the hotel.
The airline unions, on the other hand, have threatened to relocate crews to other hotels in the vicinity unless management agrees to hire local union labor for the makeover.
At the picket line with @FlyingWithSara & @Mass_BTC outside the Boston @Marriott Copley! Proud to stand in solidarity with workers & union labor. #UnionStrong #WuPlane ✈️ pic.twitter.com/nPszFVKXs4
— Michelle Wu 吳弭 (@wutrain) March 4, 2022
“We are mobilizing at all levels of our unions and engaging with airline management to move our business to other hotels until you have resolved this dispute to the satisfaction of our allied unions,” an open letter from the unions informed the hotel.
“We will not be using your hotel while you undermine the working people of Boston. We do not cross the picket line”.
Seven airline unions signed the letter, including the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA-CWA), which represents 50,000 crew members in the United States alone, as well as American Air’s flight attendants union, the Allied Pilot Association, and the Southwest Pilots Union.
Sara Nelson, head of the Association of Flight Attendants, attended a rally and picket outside the hotel on Friday, asking that the hotel cease underpaying visiting contractors.
Nelson has been a vocal opponent of unfair labor practices in the hotel business, and he has regularly backed striking hotel workers in their struggle for improved working conditions.
International flight attendants use the Marriott Copley Place as a stopover crew, but they may not be spared from the protests. Lufthansa ignored a picket line at a layover hotel in Vancouver in May 2021, but flight attendants were targeted by the striking employees.
A bus driver transporting Lufthansa flight attendants to the hotel allegedly ran over the foot of a protestor who was blocking their route. rush to the hotel in one incident. Protesters also targeted the Lufthansa crew at the airport in another incident.
