by Brooke Beloso
February 5, 2012
This is a short dispatch from Occupy the Superbowl this weekend in Indianapolis.
Spirits were high at the Super Bowl Hyatt
picket line yesterday, where over 400 of us from Indianapolis,
Detroit, and Chicago rallied with UNITE-HERE in solidarity with Hyatt workers. Workers have been fighting for collective bargaining rights, OSHA compliance, and a living wage with benefits. The $1,000/night room rate for Super Bowl weekend makes blatant the hypocrisy of the Hyatt’s refusal to treat workers fairly, while making millions off of them.
NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith joined us, reassuring us that the NFL would continue its year long Hyatt boycott in solidarity.
The picket came after a demoralizing beat down by the Indiana
statehouse, that ushered in “right to work” legislation and “sex
trafficking” laws to address imaginary problems born of sex panic
hysteria by having men sign pledges not to buy sex from girls and
training thousands of people to report suspected instances of “sex
trafficking” (the new pretext for racial profiling). Too bad our tax
dollars can’t go toward having people sign pledges not to support
businesses that exploit workers, or training people to report
suspected instances of labor exploitation.