Outsourcing Hotel Jobs To Be Banned In Cambridge

Cambridge City Councilor Marjorie Decker says the impetus for the ordinance was the 2009 mass firing of housekeepers at Hyatt hotels in Cambridge and Boston. At the time, 100 housekeepers were let go and replaced with new workers who earned about half the pay and had no health benefits. The incident caused such an uproar that Gov. Deval Patrick (D) called for a boycott of Hyatt.

After the incident, Decker led her council colleagues in asking the licensing commission to consider barring such outsourcing.

"What they did was unconscionable," Decker says of Hyatt. "That aside, there's still a real issue surrounding public health and public safety. The licensing commission did not base their decision on labor practices."