Religious Scholars Stand in Solidarity with Hyatt Workers

This blog post has been reprinted with permission from the website Hyatt Hurts. 

A convention of several thousand religious scholars was scheduled to meet in downtown Chicago the weekend before Thanksgiving. When a few of the scholars found out they would have to cross a picket line to attend, they began organizing to support Hyatt workers and the Hyatt boycott. As a result, hundreds of religious scholars took action online, lobbied their organizations to move the event, and invited workers to speak to the Boards of Directors of their organizations.

The joint meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) and the American Academy of Religion (AAR) was held at the McCormick Place Convention Center, drawing more than 10,000 religious scholars to Chicago.  In honor of the worker-called national Hyatt boycott, religious scholars successfully fought to move all sessions from the boycotted Hyatt McCormick and signed a petition pledging not to stay, enter, or spend money at the Hyatt hotels in Chicago. The decision to avoid the Hyatt hotels was made based on teachings found in religious texts.

Some religious scholars attending the event went to extraordinary lengths to honor the boycott. The only non-boycotted hotels were almost two miles away from the conference center. This meant observant Jews would have to walk to the conference early Saturday morning, since they cannot take transportation on the Sabbath. So religious scholars and Hyatt workers organized a “Solidarity Walk” to let them know they were not alone and to show their appreciation for their commitment to honoring the boycott.

Some scholars were also worried about the crushing workloads. Carolyn Roncolato, a graduate student at Chicago Theological Seminary and AAR member, explained to the New York Times:

“The Hyatt does routinely unjust things. They won’t give them fitted sheets for the bed, so they have to life to 100-pound mattresses up and fold sheets under.  I understand it to be an ethical issue, an issue of justice, an issue of civic engagement.”

During the convention weekend, Roncolato and other supporters suggested that AAR members attend an American Academy of Religion business meeting on Sunday morning, where a pro-labor resolution was proposed. The resolution, which passed, proposed that clauses in future hotel and convention contracts allow the organization to be released from contractual obligations without penalty if there is a labor dispute at the hotel or convention.

Hyatt has singled itself out as the worst employer in the hotel industry. They have eliminated jobs, replaced career housekeepers with minimum wage temporary workers, and imposed dangerous workloads on those who remain. Hyatt has refused to remain neutral as non-union hotel workers organize. In Chicago, they are unique in their refusal to adopt the fair contract that the other hotels in the city have adopted.

“The Gospels are very clear that the Christian call is to stand on the side of the marginalized, and in that case it’s very clear that’s the hotel workers,” Roncolato said. “So the idea that as academics we would ignore the people around us while we talk is hypocritical.”

The scholars’ concern for Hyatt workers received national press attention. Check out these stories in the Chicago Tribune and the national edition of the New York Times.

People interested in supporting the Hyatt workers' boycott in Boston can be in touch with me at hkossek@unitehere.org.

The Gift of Myanmar: Balancing Motherhood and Scholarship

By Grace Ji-Sun Kim

     Yangon, Myanmar is a city of contrasts—beauty mixed with pollution, breathtaking pagodas alongside broken down homes, fancy malls beside street vendor and open markets, and sidewalk restaurants along with air-conditioned westernized ones. Everything is a sharp contrast. My recent visit provided the opportunity to see the contrasts within my own life in new ways. 
     When I accepted the invitation to speak at Myanmar Institute of Theology in Yangon, Myanmar, my friends and family criticized me. They were uneasy about my decision to travel to a developing country and warned me about the political unrest and danger I might face. They were especially critical of my decision to take my ten-year-old daughter along with me.  Why should a mother of three who is already busy with teaching, writing, household chores, and mothering spend eleven days away from home in a volatile country?
     I have often felt torn between being a good mother and being a reputable scholar. I’ve felt criticized by other mothers because teaching or research took so much of my time away from my children.  For over a decade, I lived with constant guilt of trying to establish myself as a scholar and trying to be the best mom I can be. 
     On the other side, the scholarly world often criticized me for bringing a child to a scholarly event, as I looked more maternal than scholarly. Up until two years ago I travelled to every American Academy of Religion annual meeting since 1996 giving numerous papers and participating in committee meetings with at least one child at my side.

     I tried to rationalize that I was not such a terrible mom by remembering how much I was trying to do. I gave birth to two children during my PhD studies and one while searching for a job.  I nursed all three kids until they were one and I speak in Korean to them as part of sharing as much of my cultural heritage as possible. I drive my kids to Korean school, ballet, soccer, basketball, and school events.  I even serve home cooked meals as often as I can. Surely that showed that I was not such a terrible mom, but doubt still lingered.

     In Yangon, I gave three lectures and preached two sermons.  At my first lecture, my daughter listened for about forty-five minutes before a local woman came to take her shopping.  It was a prearranged shopping event, as I thought she might be bored listening to my three-hour lecture.
     Later my daughter said that once she left the room she kept thinking, “I want to be with my mom.  I want to listen to my mom’s lecture.”  She said that she was thoroughly enjoying listening to my lecture.  She said that I was saying so many important things and was disappointed that she had to leave.
     It was at that moment that I realized that my daughter might have her own ideas about my mothering. She thought I was a great and wonderful mom.  In my daughter’s eyes, I was the greatest mom in the world, who took her out of school to visit Yangon.  I was a fascinating mom whom people found interesting enough to come out to hear on a day that the seminary was closed for entrance exams. It was in that moment in Myanmar that I—for the first time—felt whole as a mother and as a scholar. To her, I was not a “terrible” mom.  That made all the difference.
     I didn’t have to live with the internal tension of trying to please my Asian culture, which expects a good mother to stay home, and the competitive world of theological scholarship, which expects me to continuously contribute to theological discourse.  I can be who I am.  I traveled half way across the world to realize that I can be both mother and scholar. It doesn’t have to be either/or.  All the guilt lifted during that precious moment with my daughter.
     I have my daughter to thank for this affirmation after struggling trying to please both sides. She showed me how I can be both scholar and mother at the same time. And Myanmar helped me embrace both the beauty and the struggle inherent in each.

Grace Ji-Sun Kim is Associate Professor of Doctrinal Theology and the Director of the MATS program at Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She is the author of The Holy Spirit, Chi, and the Other: A Model of Global and Intercultural Pneumatology (Palgrave Macmillan) and The Grace of Sophia: A Korean North American Women's Christology (Pilgrim Press).