The Westin St. Francis in San Francisco is a bad hotel and Sleep with the Right People wants to make sure we don’t get caught there until they grant their workers fair contracts and affordable health care.
Sleep with the Right People is a coalition of LBGT folks and UNITE HERE, a union representing over 300,000 hospitality and manufacturing workers across North America.
Recently, the coalition spread the word about the worker-initiated boycott of the Westin St. Francis with a flash mob parody song called “Bad Hotel,” based on Lady Gaga’s hit song “Bad Romance.” Check out the video below:
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what “good” activism is. Direct action and other forms of public protest are essential to drawing attention to invisible or poorly understood issues and igniting the passion of others for the cause. As activists, we have a rich and proud history of marches and protests and occupations and yet sometimes others use this history to justify tuning us out before our message reaches them (an ‘if i’ve seen one protest, I’ve seen them all’ mentality).
Well, a mob of people dancing, singing, and playing instruments in the middle of a hotel lobby to the tune of a song that almost everyone knows is a good way to dodge that mentality and get people’s attention. The added bonus of performance is that it can come off as less threatening than a march or a ‘teach-in.’
From Gangster Octopus:
To learn more about how to honor the boycott and support the workers visit:
http://www.sleepwiththerightpeople.org
http://www.hotelworkersrising.org/…this event was organized by:
San Francisco Pride at Work / HAVOQ http://www.sfprideatwork.org
One Struggle One Fight http://www.onestruggleonefight.org
The Brass Liberation Orchestra http://brassliberation.org
Also, check out Hotel Workers Rising! for a guide to hotels that employ UNITE HERE workers.
