A Clergy Report on Working Conditions at Hyatt Hotels
Guess what? 
This report, the result of direct conversations with Hyatt workers across the U.S., details a broader practice by Hyatt that we find contrary to the religious traditions we uphold.
There is no real shocker here. However, the broader problem, the war on the working class, is wonderfully and bitterly laid out here by J.J. Goldberg at the Forward.
If you don’t think that its a war, you’re not paying attention.
Goldberg points out that the ever increasing inequality in wealth and power in our society is correlated with ever increasing worker productivity.
When we read about increasing productivity we might think of automation or other labor saving technology. But the productivity of a housekeeper at Hyatt who cleans 30 rooms a day at minimum wage with no benefits is a lot higher than the productivity of a housekeeper who cleans 16 rooms a day at $15.00 an hour with health care and a pension and this isn’t because of technology. In many Hyatt hotels, workers aren’t even provided with the basic technology of fitted sheets and long handled mops. This insane workload hurts and leads to high injury rates. The real difference here is the enormous power disparity between employers and employees, which is both a consequence of the enormous wealth and power disparity in our society but also its cause.
In Jewish tradition we are cursed for removing the ancient borders that divided the land equitably and were an ever present indictment of a society that has grown profoundly inequitable. With the ancient landmarks long gone we must be that reminder.
The Clergy report, Open the Gates of Justice, makes the case that decreasing the power disparity in the workplace is essential to decreasing it in society and that as Jews we have an obligation to stand with workers, through supporting their boycotts and in other ways, as workers organize to decrease the power disparity in their workplace.
As Jews we can incorporate this solidarity into our religious practice, as the rabbis in the report have done, by pledging to treat the Hyatt as not kosher until it treats its workers with justice.