Guest MINDSETTER™ Cedric de Leon: PC Should Boycott the Renaissance Hotel

Friday, April 10, 2015

Cedric de Leon, Guest MINDSETTER™

 

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Providence College should boycott the Renaissance Hotel in Providence. The owner of the hotel, The Procaccianti Group (TPG), engages in employment practices that are inconsistent with Catholic social teaching.

On March 26, 2013 a majority of workers at the Renaissance Hotel presented their hotel manager with a petition requesting a fair process to decide on unionization. The workers face sub-living-wage levels, grueling workloads, and deep disrespect from management. So far TPG has refused to grant employees a fair process. Instead, it has mounted an aggressive anti-union campaign. In December 2013, the hotel workers decided to take the brave step of calling for a boycott of the hotel.

Meanwhile, the Renaissance Hotel has been the subject of two federal enforcement actions in the past two years. In October 2013 the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited TPG for workplace violations, which resulted in a settlement to pay $8000 in fines. A few months later the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against TPG for multiple Unfair Labor Practices including "interrogating employees about their union activities" on multiple occasions. To avoid a trial, the hotel finally entered a consent agreement last year requiring federal government notices to be read and posted throughout the hotel. However, the hotel refused to admit any responsibility for unlawful actions in either case, which makes its future promises seem hollow to its workers.

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This anti-union campaign is not consistent with the Catholic values of Providence College. Indeed, that is exactly why PC is a member, together with Notre Dame and other Roman Catholic schools, of the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC). Several years ago we made a decision as a community that we would not sell sweatshop apparel in the college bookstore. Despite all of this, the administration has been resistant to joining the boycott.

Now some might say that the workers should spend more time in dialogue with the employer and come to a reasonable agreement without resorting to drastic actions like a boycott. However, the workers have already done everything in their power to achieve justice from their employer. They have been organizing to no avail since early 2013.

The only action that will bring the employer to the table is economic pressure. We are not asking PC to pull the College's business entirely, but rather to withhold it until such time as the labor dispute is resolved. Already other organizations have agreed to take action. For example, Brown University's events services and purchasing department will not use the hotel until the dispute is resolved; Brown also provides information to visitors about the conditions at the hotel so that they can make informed decisions about hotel options. PC should do the same in advance of their next scheduled function at the hotel, which is Reunion Weekend, May 29-31. There are plenty of hotel options in Providence for our alumni – the Renaissance should not be one of them.

Cedric de Leon is Associate Professor of Sociology at Providence College and author of The Origins of Right to Work, which is forthcoming May 1, 2015 from Cornell University Press.

 

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