Shift Change: How New Orleans hospitality workers are organizing their industry

Willie Woods, a Hilton New Orleans Riverside banquet server, was an early supporter of that hotel's union drive. (Photo by Cheryl Gerber)

“Drawing on 2014 U.S. Census data, a recent report from Loyola University’s Workplace Justice Project noted 34 percent of Orleans Parish’s primary jobs that paid less than $1,250 a month were in “accommodation and food services.” It’s a pattern of compensation workers say is both insufficient and unfair, considering the value they create — and how much of their lives they give to their jobs.”

“Erika Zucker, Workplace Justice Center policy advocate, also points out that Louisiana’s complicated, racially charged legacy with the industrial unions and its status as a right-to-work state (meaning, among other things, employees are not obligated to pay dues at unionized workplaces, undercutting unions’ influence) create a less-than-receptive local climate for organized labor.”

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