The Brown University Student Labor Alliance (SLA) made an important step on the path to ending the Ivy League school’s investments in HEI Hotels and Resorts of the company’s pattern of union busting.
Luiz Valente, Chair of Brown’s Advisory Committee on Corporate Responsibility and Investment Policy (ACCRIP), wrote the following in a message to SLA:
ACCRIP concluded … a persistent pattern of allegations involving the company’s treatment of workers and interference with their efforts to unionize, combined with repeated settlements, as described above, raised serious questions whether Brown’s continued association with HEI would be consistent with the ethical principles governing the university’s investments.
Workers at HEI’s hotels have been organizing with the union UNITE HERE to win fairer working conditions. In fact, workers have decided to put four of these hotels under boycott: Embassy Suites Irvine, Hilton Long Beach, Sheraton Crystal City and Le Meridian San Francisco.
Looking forward to 2011, the decision by ACCRIP will create more and more pressure on universities around the country to divest from HEI.
You can read SLA’s press release on the HEI Workers Rising campaign site.
