Woodfin Suites Hotel organizes and provides free lodging for anti-immigrant activists

If we're rent-a-thugs, these kids must have been rented from their parents' country clubs. Perhaps that sign is self-referential.

In an earlier post I called Woodfin an "evil corporation."  But even according evil corporation standards, this is just downright appalling.  An email from the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy reports the following:

The right-wing, anti-immigrant, anti-worker squads are at it again. This time, they're being sponsored, and paid for, by the Woodfin Suites Hotel in Emeryville.

This past Saturday, during our regular picket at the Woodfin, we were joined by twenty five counter-protestors identifying themselves as College Republicans from UC Davis and San Francisco State. They showed up carrying provocative placards - “No Green Card, No Work”, “Justice is at the Back of the Line”, “Union Thugs Go Home”, "Legals YES, Illegals NO," and “Marx Would Be Proud” - and tried to disrupt our protest.

The counter-protestors were openly taking direction from the Woodfin's management, going where the hotel’s General Manager told them to, standing on hotel property. They even bragged that Woodfin management had put them up in free hotel rooms the night before!

When we tried to separate ourselves, they physically shoved into our picket line- even pushing and berating the young children of Woodfin workers! Finally, the Emeryville police created a barrier between them and our peaceful picket, for the safety of all involved.

Join the pickets. Contact the Woodfin.

Comments

[Artemisia]

They call us rent a crowd? What stupid stupid kids, bragging that Woodfin put them up. What does that make them then? We here in Aus busy fighting "workchoices" and anti union legislation that is driving down conditions and wages. My love and solidarity to y'all.

[Jack Stephens]

Holy shit! That guy on the right is Leigh Wolfe from SF State. Man! I've bumped into him a bunch of times. He's kinda notorius here on campus.

[Jack Stephens]

When I said to the right for some reason I meant their right. He's on our left.

[Leigh Wolf]

How do you respond to this video of a union member attacking us? (Towards the end of the vid)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InaIT8CaREo

[scott]

How do I respond? In four ways.

My first response is judging from that video, you have way too much time on your hands, unless the Woodfin is paying you to put this out along with showing up as their hired goons.

My second response is "attacking" and "touching a camera" are two different things, and since your editing took the scene out of context, I have no reason to trust you.

My third response is I wouldn't touch your camera, but I'm not that person at the protest. I've had your racist buddies the Minutemen "attack" my camera, but I don't go whining about it.

My fourth response is that the Woodfin is breaking the law by not acting in accordance with Measure C and your (hired) cheerleading of a profoundly anti-human corporation speaks volumes of your character.

[Leigh Wolf]

First, yes i do have too much time on my hands, but I was not paid to make that video, it's just a hobby.

Second, "You guys better think twice about coming back to these events." (Quote from the video) Is incredibly threatening language, which is then followed by him lunging toward us. Not to mention they had already followed us to our car. How is that out of context?

Third, I don't know any minutemen. It shows a bit of desperation in your argument when you try to link me to a group that is politically unpopular in California without any basis for your statement.

Fourth, Measure C was a hit job on the woodfin put on the ballot by the labor unions. Why doesn't the "Living Wage" apply to all business in Emeryville? If you care about workers, why not draft a measure that covers all workers and not just those who happen to be working at a hotel that chooses not to unionize?

What you're missing here is that IF the Woodfin kept the 12 illegal immigrants on the payroll, the Federal government would follow through on their on going audit and shut down the hotel for knowingly employing illegals, which would put over 100 other people out of work. Or at the very least levied hefty fines against the hotel which would most assuredly effect staffing. Sounds like a real labor friendly move to me.....Isn't it also interesting that only some of the 12 workers that were fired have filed formal complaints with the city? Complaints that were drafted by the union ahead of time. If measure C is so beneficial to Woodfin workers and not just a Union hit job, why aren't workers who are currently employed filing complaints? If Measure C is so "legal" why is the measure's legal merit very much in doubt in the courts as we speak?

Why is it that despite the fact that i was kicked, tripped, spit at and pushed, somehow I am nothing more than a hired goon. I couldn't hurt a fly if I wanted to. And yet you slander us because you disagree with us. You know nothing about our character and still, you speak as though you are an authority on the subject. Using leftist cliches like "supporting an anti-human corporation" you aim to chip away at our credibility by making baseless accusations in hopes that those who read your blog with accept them as fact. You are mistaken on many things, not the least of which is quality of my character.

[scott]

I'm not here to defend the AFSCME person's actions. Like I said, I disagree with them, but at the same time, it's really not a big deal. And your editing does not provide the full context.

Measure C applies to all hotels in Emeryville, not just the Woodfin. The Woodfin is just the only one that is refusing to comply. Why aren't more people complaining? Maybe cause they saw what happened to the people who did complain. Maybe they are taking action in other ways. Or maybe their wages are unaffected by the requirements of Measure C.

How ironic you complain about slander. You admitted you were bussed in by the hotel and allowed to stay there for free. How does that not make you hired goons? On the other hand, the vast majority of those in support of the workers and in support of a living wage were not union members and didn't receive any benefits in exchange for showing up.

I would love to be proven wrong about your character. But all I see are (more or less) privileged, white college students actively targeting and inciting against some of the most vulnerable members of society. To me, such behavior is disgraceful, and does not make me think highly of your character.

[Leigh Wolf]

Attacking political dissidents isn't that big of a deal? Who are you? If the college republicans followed a protester to their car and threatened them and pushed them around you'd be calling for someone to be arrested.
We came to the first protest on our own without any compensation from anyone. We show up to counter protest on our own accord all the time. Why wouldn't I take a free hotel room? I'm going to be there anyway. Unions actually pay people to show up to demonstrations. The bottom line is I would have been there with or without the room, which is backed up by our involvement at the first protest having had no rooms to stay in then. Furthermore, a "Goon" is someone who actively engages in violence or threats of violence which is something we never did. And don't even bother wasting time trying to say we did, because you have zero evidence to back up such a claim. Where as we have your side on tape threatening us.
Measure C applies to non-union hotels in Emeryville, basically the four points and the woodfin. The marriot "agreed" to comply because the union had already forced them to raise the wages past measure C standards because that hotel is unionized. The marriot paid a whopping $9,000 in back pay. SAY IT AIN'T SO!! The Unions want 20 times that amount from the Woodfin for the illegal immigrants the hotel fired.

"Why aren't more people complaining? Maybe cause they saw what happened to the people who did complain. "
Interesting how these measure C "whistle blowers" also happen to be illegal immigrants. Of course that fact is conveniently omitted from most accounts of the events that transpired. As far as the world knows, these were just poor innocent workers who hadn't done a single thing wrong. Maybe more people aren't complaining because they realize this is nothing more than a thinly veiled attack by the unions on a local business that lawfully employs over 100 people; an attack that could end up shutting down the hotel and leaving those 100+ people unemployed.

[Juanita]

This just in from the SF Bay Guardian, an article about the hotel that evicted me and our family for our activism on behalf of the 21 (mostly single mom) housekeepers who spoke up for our living wage ordinance:

ICE Does Favor for Republican Congressman & His Donor
http://www.sfbg.com/printable_entry.php?entry_id=3834

An upscale Emeryville hotel embroiled in a nasty, yearlong labor dispute appears to have called on the owner's conservative political connections to bring about an immigration audit of the hotel. Worker advocates say the move was an effort to intimidate immigrant workers involved in a campaign to enforce a living-wage law.

Kurt Bardella, a spokesperson for US Rep. Brian Bilbray (R–San Diego), told the Guardian that a representative of the Emeryville Woodfin Suites contacted Bilbray's office for assistance Feb. 1.

The request came within weeks of Alameda County Superior Court and Emeryville City Council rulings requiring the Woodfin to rehire the 21 workers it fired just before Christmas, allegedly due to worker Social Security numbers not matching federal records. That injunction was in effect pending an investigation of workers' claims that the hotel had retaliated against them for organizing to enforce Measure C, a living-wage law passed by Emeryville voters in 2005.

"We were contacted by one of the HR people at the Woodfin Suites," Bardella told us. "They told us about the situation" and explained that they "had no mechanism" to deal with it, he said.

Bilbray, who chairs the House Immigration Reform Caucus and is one of the most vocal opponents of the recent immigration bill, wrote directly to the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in February to request that it investigate the immigration status of Emeryville Woodfin Suites employees in order to "to create a mechanism for the employer to address this issue."

Bilbray represents the suburban San Diego district in which Woodfin Suites president Samuel Hardage lives. "We treated this as a constituent issue," Bardella told us.

Hardage is not only a constituent; he has consistently contributed to Bilbray's campaigns for at least the past 13 years, donating $4,200 in 2006. A George W. Bush Pioneer, having raised $100,000 for the 2004 election, Hardage is also a major player in California and San Diego Republican politics.

Workers say the ICE audit was an intimidation tactic that should not have been used against them while they were trying to assert their rights, and ICE's internal policies raise questions about whether the agency should have gotten involved in this labor dispute.

For months the Woodfin Suites has tried to justify firing workers who organized for better labor conditions by alluding to fears of reprisal by ICE. In a May 8 San Francisco Chronicle op-ed, General Manager Hugh MacIntosh castigated the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (EBASE), a labor-affiliated think tank that supports the hotel's workers, for "resorting to well-worn intimidation schemes to secure workers' support for their organization drives."

The "fact that our hotel has been asked by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to provide employment records, coupled with the agency's raids in the Bay Area, suggests that our actions are anything but voluntary," he wrote.

The Bilbray connection significantly undermines this claim and could be significant in a pending state lawsuit by the workers. It is against the law for an employer to fire workers for organizing for better working conditions, regardless of immigration status. Under current immigration laws, however, it is also common.

"Employers often contact immigration authorities ... in order to avoid liability," Monica Guizar, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, told us. "It is a well-known and documented tactic that employers use to stymie union organizing campaigns [and] escape liability for violating workers' rights."

In recognition of this abuse, memorandums from the Department of Labor and internal ICE regulations have been established to dissuade worksite interventions when a labor dispute is occurring. Advocates have successfully invoked these guidelines to terminate deportation proceedings and prevent raids in the past, but immigrant workers are still incredibly vulnerable.

ICE Special Agent's Field Manual section 33.14(h) requires that agents use restraint where a labor dispute is in progress and the complaint about employees' immigration status "is being provided to interfere with the rights of employees to ... be paid minimum wages and overtime; to have safe work places ... or to retaliate against employees for seeking to vindicate those rights."

Additionally, a 1998 memorandum of understanding between the Department of Labor and ICE (then known as the INS) directs immigration agents to "avoid inappropriate worksite interventions where it is known or reasonably suspected that a labor dispute is occurring and the intervention may, or may be sought so as to, interfere in the dispute."

Guizar confirmed that these regulations are still in place under ICE.