They walk up and down in front of the hotel. There are speeches and cheers. And the next day’s story in the Sun-Times didn’t talk about the strikers but the latest legal wrangling by the union.
What about the strikers six years later? What about the maids and bartenders and others who took second jobs or floated from one low-paying job to another to get by?
What about the people who couldn’t speak good enough English to find another decent paying job though they had worked for years at the Congress Hotel?
There is a human story here that maybe only the ethnic news media can see. A story about resilence, about standing up for what you think is right. Standing up when your suffering only grows because of it.
Or a story about the painful search for a decent job when you are on the low-wage ladder and your language limitations and middle age makes it difficult for you to get your footing again? So you keep tumbling downward.
Or a story about what unions mean for immigrants and minorities. Or just a video about why someone who earns $8.83 an hour making up beds would put up such a fight?
