Popular Democratic Party Sens. Cirilo Tirado Rivera and Jorge Suárez called Sunday on the managers of several hotels to start negotiations with the Gastronomic Union Local 610, which represents 1,200 employees, saying that local workers are of equal caliber to those in other jurisdictions.
“We have workers with the same experience and preparation as any other place in the world. It is not fair for the same multi-million-dollar business to offer juicy salaries to workers in other areas of the United States [and] low salaries here. We ask for the management of these hotels to sit down and negotiate in good faith,” Tirado said.
Employees from Caribe Hilton, Conrad Condado Plaza, Radisson Ambassador Plaza and El San Juan threatened last week to go on strike because of their salaries and the expiration of their collective bargaining agreement.
Blackstone, the multi-national company that owns Hilton Hotels Corp., which has billions in assets, also owns and operates the Caribe Hilton, Condado Plaza and Hotel San Juan, the senators said.
“This multi-million-dollar company receives exclusive financial incentives from the Puerto Rican government, for which it should compensate with benefits to its workers and clients. Blackstone has received tens of millions of dollars in financial incentives and tax rebates through the Tourist Investment Tax Credit, while our workers are the worst paid in the nation,” Suárez said.
In the ‘90s, Gastronomic Local 610 had the third best labor contract of all the workers in this trade in the U.S., following San Francisco and New York, Tirado said.
“At the time hotel workers in New York were paid $11.60 an hour, while waitresses in San Juan earned $10.60 an hour. Now as salaries for wait staff at hotels in the United States have grown, the salaries for wait staff and hotel workers in San Juan have declined. A waitress in New York earns $24 an hour, while the unionized waitresses at the Hilton properties on the island earn a little more than $9 an hour. This goes against the benefits the hotel company receives,” Tirado said
Suárez said: “Salaries paid to hotel workers in Puerto Rico are those of [a] poverty [level], while similar salaries have increased throughout United States. Figures for 2009 show that wait staff in San Juan earned less than their counterparts in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Miami and New Orleans.”
While workers in Washington receive $6 an hour for medical benefits, workers here get $1.33; while workers there get $1.30 an hour toward their pension, workers here receive only 26 cents an hour, the senators said.