Election slated for Thursday on unionization effort by employees of Renaissance Providence Hotel

AN EFFORT to unionize employees at the Renaissance Providence Hotel will be determined through an election Thursday. / WARREN JAGGER PHOTOGRAPHY / COURTESY RENAISSANCE PROVIDENCE
AN EFFORT to unionize employees at the Renaissance Providence Hotel will be determined through an election Thursday. / WARREN JAGGER PHOTOGRAPHY / COURTESY RENAISSANCE PROVIDENCE

PROVIDENCE – A long-contentious effort to unionize employees at the Renaissance Providence Hotel will be determined through an election Thursday.
The election, called by the National Labor Relations Board, also will be supervised by that organization. The election is an effort years in the making, according to union organizers, who said the hotel ownership had repeatedly tried to prevent employees from organizing.
The hotel ownership group, The Procaccianti Group, say that’s not true.
In an email, its spokesman said the hotel ownership had never opposed a union election, but wanted to make sure it was conducted according to NLRB rules, which include a secret ballot vote. The ownership did not want a process featuring a “card check,” which would involve employees voting by signing union representation cards presented by organizers, according to Ralph Izzi Jr., a spokesman for The Procaccianti Group.
“The hotel has been 100 percent consistent in our support of the National Labor Relations Act and its protection of rights for both employers and workers,” Izzi said.
The union organizers are Unite Here Local 217, which represents hotel and food service workers in Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Nearly 50 Renaissance employees, including housekeepers, laundry workers and bellmen, are eligible to participate, according to Jaimie McNeil, an organizer for Local 26 in Massachusetts, a sister organization to Local 217.
For months, the pro-union employees have said they are not paid as well as union peers at other hotels in Providence, and want a union to represent their interests with management. The workers also believe that a union will increase gender and racial equity, because the employees are primarily female and Dominican, according to a release from Local 217.
Raquel Cruz, a housekeeper who favors a union, said she earns $12.24 an hour after working at the hotel for seven years, and pays for her own health insurance. She believes a union will mean a pay increase. “[Our] pay will increase,” she said. “I have a daughter who is in preschool and a son who is going to college.”
The election will be held in the cafeteria at the hotel, according to McNeil, who said the union organizers plan a rally at the hotel at 4:30 p.m. Thursday.

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