<i>My grandfather emigrated here from Austria in the 20's. He dropped out of school in order to haul coal on his back to tenement residents in Chicago, of all places</i>

These are the kinds of stories that the "american dream" is about, at least ideally.

My mom immigrated here from the Philippines in 1963. My dad left her with 6 kids (ages 3-10) including, one mentally retarded & handicapped. I was 5. Mom reared 6 kids on a non-union waitress/bartender's salary. Me, my childhood ended when I was 7 and had to take care of my family (being the eldest son). My summers were spent picking up rings for the ring toss at a Carnival so my mom could pay her electric bill. I've been in the work force since I was 11 in some capacity, was a union member for 6 years when I worked full time overnight, throwing cans in a grocery store and went to school full time.

The one thing my mom always said to her children was:
<i>"More people die of starvation in this world than from hard work. When life gets tougher, you work harder."</i>

I think though, sometimes you need to feel the hunger pangs to force you to seek your sustenance.

This doesn't have much to do with the current situation, just an aside.

jv

Here's the press release the hotel gave to us:

home.earthlink.net/~the_evi...ress1.jpg
home.earthlink.net/~the_evi...ress2.jpg

Here are the news articles that address the Hotel's status with the city:

home.earthlink.net/~the_evi.../news.doc

Here's a link to a blurb about what staying at the Congress was like in the early days of the strike:

www.successfulmeetings.com/succ...y.jsp

Here's a link to an interesting website of workers within HERE who want democratic representation.

www.heretics.net

Here's some more links about background of the union leadership:

www.laborers.org/sun-times...-19-00.htm
www.yale.edu/wrp/html/un...oldiers.html

The origins of the current dispute go back further than the Congress dispute:

www.labornotes.org/archives...10/b.html

Here's a cost of living convertor that normalizes the wages.

www.bankrate.com/brm/movecalc.asp

The entire premise of the wage increase in 2002 was the unadjusted NYC wage, not the cost of living adjusted wages.

Here's a little blurb about how much the Congress is paying it's non union workers. From the wage stated in the Labor notes page, it's not simply about money, as the non-union employees are making $11/hr, according to the labor note.

Here's an interesting article that was in the Chicago Reader,
last week that summarizes the current state of a lot of some unions in Chicago. From the title "Unions, who's side are they on anyway?" you can kind of figure out by the title, where the story is going.

securesite.chireader.com/cgi-b...d2.bat

The Reader is widely recognized as one of the leading alternative weeklies in the U.S.


If you need more information in order to make an informed decision on the matter, I have volumes of information, I have acaquired concerning this situation, the history of this particular union, their tactics and some other details you might find interesting.

The Congress hotel currently employees over 300 union and non-union employees and has always maintained good relations with all the unions past and present up until the new union leadership took over in Chicago. Several other unions have crossed the picket lines to work including a group that shot a video that aired on MTV last month.

The Congress hotel has always been a strong supporter of alternative life, subcultures and scenes, especially the gay/lesbian and music scenes. The staff there said they know goths and were very excited to have us there.

Other groups that are holding events at the Congress right after us are:

The Bear Pride Group (gay pride group)
www.glbears.com/bp/index.html

and

The Mecca Music Conference (independent musicians/artists)
www.mecaconference.com/index-...sh.html

HTH,
jv