Gansevoort Hotel: A conversation with two of our newest members

How long have you worked at the Gansevoort?

DANNY: I’ve been there more than 5 years, almost 6. I’m a houseman.

DORJEE: I’ve worked at the Gansevoort since 2019. I started as a houseman and now I’m doing minibar.

Why did you want to organize your hotel? What were the working conditions like?

DANNY: After the pandemic, they made a mess of everything.

DORJEE: They fired a lot of people during the pandemic we had no job security. They hired lots of new people after, but we still have a shortage of employees, especially housemen.

DANNY: They take advantage of us. Before the pandemic there were three housemen. Now sometimes, I’m the only houseman working. Last Sunday, it was just me. There were more than 100 checkouts.

DORJEE: Our old housekeeping manager ... she screamed, she humiliated people.

DANNY: She put so much pressure on us. And she never gave overtime. We had to work so fast. We had to do whatever she said we were scared we were gonna lose our jobs. She would call me when I was on lunch to go take a guest call. All the time.

DORJEE: Since I started to do minibar, I’ve had a little problem with my knees and my toes. I have an old leg injury, but I worked at almost ten different hotels before the Gansevoort. It never bothered me before. But here it was like hell. Our manager pushed us to work like animals. For example, I’m on the third floor, and my manager would call me to come right away to the 8th floor. If I couldn’t come right away – because the elevator didn’t come immediately – then she’d keep calling and stressing me out. Then I'd have to go up the stairs, carrying heavy minibar stuff on my shoulder.

DANNY: She put terror in the room attendants too. There were two out on workers comp. Our manager was going after them, and in the pressure they hurt themselves. One got her finger stuck in the door, the other hit her head.

DORJEE: She never bought new equipment. My minibar cart was broken. There weren’t any vacuums in good condition. We had to fight over them. And then when we couldn’t do a nice vacuum in the room, she would discipline us. For the room attendants, she would go the next day and give someone 13 straight checkouts. Yell at them in the group meeting, make them uncomfortable.

DANNY: Obviously, it was really hard physically to work under that pressure, but the worst was the mental stress. When I went home, if I have to work the next day, I’m not happy. Always something to be sad about, you know.

DORJEE: When we come to work in the morning, we feel like what’s she going to do with us today? We never felt safe or peaceful to come to work.

DANNY: If she heard we were talking in Tibetan she would yell, 'don’t talk in your language. Talk in English.'

DANNY: One of our coworkers, David. He worked at the Gansevoort for a long time, years and years. He told us he aged a lot working there. He was telling us, 'you guys are young, you should look for another job. Whatever happened to me will happen to you.'

DORJEE: Before we started organizing my mind was looking for another job. Then we met with the Union. We had experienced organizers telling us, the Union can change things. They taught us more than we even expected. Then I started to feel like, oh, there’s a way. We can change things from the bottom up.

How did you start organizing with our Union?

DORJEE: I knew someone at the Marriott Marquis who sent me to meet with a union organizer. At first, I didn’t feel safe to talk with my friends at work. We were friendly, but we weren’t trusting each other. I met with the organizer, and later on, he had me speak to some friends. I did, we shared our feelings, and we decided to do it. In like ten minutes, we were together, we had started to plan. We talked through the phone mostly at first. Then we met in Jackson Heights, five of us. We had a tea meeting.

DANNY: I found out about the Union from my cousins who work in a union hotel. And Dorjee had already been going. He told me, and right away I joined. Otherwise, I would have had to leave the Gansevoort. I couldn’t live my whole life like that under the pressure.

DORJEE: In May 2022, we started coming to the Union once a week, sometimes more. They explained to us in detail about the union contract and compared it with non-union companies. I already knew a little about the contract from a friend who worked at a union hotel, but I learned a lot from the comparison – the wages, the rights, how union workers have job security.

DANNY: What stuck out to me most from the contract was the job security. I’m obviously going to continue working, but I haven’t done college – so I know this will be my area of work. I’m so happy to know, with the Union, my job is secure. They can’t just fire me unless there’s a solid reason.

I felt really excited in the first meetings. I felt like, it doesn’t even matter if the Gansevoort becomes union or not, at least there’s a possibility, something going on. It helped me a lot in the work day, knowing that we were organizing. That it would eventually lead to union representation. I had more patience to deal with our manager. Whatever she said, I just followed –like the organizers told us to do.

DORJEE: I was one of the people who would go and talk to people and bring them to the Union – so every single day I would spend my 45 minute break talking to people. Some people had questions about the Union. I listened, tried to figure out the problem, what parts about the Union they didn’t understand, and give them information about that.

Over the next year, more and more workers joined the organizing drive at the Gansevoort. Our Union had enough supporters to file for an NLRB election on January 4, 2024.

DORJEE: When I came back to work after we sent the petition, my managers were trying to act as normal. But when I see their faces they weren’t normal. They were very shocked. I felt a little bit of fear at first, but later, I felt like, why do I need to fear? This is my right.

In the weeks after we sent the petition, the hotel’s owner held a lavish breakfast for the workers on the hotel’s rooftop. Management finally replaced the broken equipment. And the housekeeping manager left the hotel; workers assume she was fired.

DANNY: A manager in accounting called me. She was never nice before. When I said good morning, she didn’t care, she wouldn’t answer. But after the anti-union campaign started, she called me and said something along the lines of, 'oh we’re like family, I know you’re a very good employee, very friendly – but I’m sorry, I forgot your name.' (Laughs). Then she starts to talk badly about the Union, says things like 'if you support the Union, then we’re not going to be a family like before'. They all said the same things, all the managers. They were nicer than my family. (Laughs). Seriously. For two minutes I was confused. That’s how they tried to manipulate us.

DANNY: I remember managers telling us things like, 'the Union is a 3rd party,' 'it’s a business,' 'a lot of union hotels closed during the pandemic,' and 'the Gansevoort might have to close if the Union comes.' But the Union organizers had explained all the lies management would tell. I was 100% sure, whatever management was saying, it’s lies. I had already made that clear in my mind. Everyone felt the same. We didn’t give any mind to what they were saying.

How did you feel on election day?

DANNY: The night before I was so excited I didn’t sleep. Scared at the same time too. I was the Union’s observer, so everyone was going to know I was a union supporter – after all that time being in secret.

DORJEE: I knew we were going to win. 

41 out of 43 members of the housekeeping staff voted yes for the Union, securing official representation by the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council. 

DANNY: At that moment I was so happy. When we were going through the ballots, I was standing across from Anton, the GM. In the beginning, he was looking at me straight, like showing he was upset. But then, as we were getting so many yes votes, I started looking back at him, and he was avoiding my eye now. The power dynamic shifted.

DORJEE: I’m extremely happy. We were struggling the last two years. I was so stressed. We’ve been through all kinds of situations. So winning the election felt like ... I did something in my life. I went to bed peacefully that night.

How have things changed at work now that you’re represented by the Union?

DANNY: One of my coworkers, who was so scared of our old manager – his face has completely changed now. His complexion is better, he’s gained weight. After the election I asked him, how do you feel? He told me, 'I feel like a thorn has been taken out of my body.'

For me, the main thing is knowing someone is backing us up. The Union’s going to be there to protect us when anything happens. And among my coworkers, 100% it has completely changed from where it was before. We used to only have small talks, now we talk, we’re really close. Because we had to be close to each other to achieve the Union.

DORJEE: It proved to us the power of teamwork. And now, no one is screaming at us. But the employee shortage is going on the same. It’s not the end you know, it’s the start of the next project. Get the contract.