Boycott against Hyatt

The interesting news this week is about the boycott and protest against Hyatt. This is because 98 housekeepers were fired, replacing by the lower-wage employees from Hospitality Staffing Solutions. This makes fired housekeepers angry and called for a boycott against Hyatt since they felt like that were treated unfairly. Deval Patrick, the governor, strongly supports the protest and wrote to the company to convince them to reverse its decision. Patrick’s action seems to be unusual so some people are wondering whether he try to boost his support for reelection.

In the period of global recession, every organization, especially private company, has to make many decisions aiming to minimize their cost and to be survive in the business world. Laying-off is one of those decisions for any company to reduce their cost. During an economic crisis, an unemployment rate is predicted to rise dramatically since lots of companies have an effect from it. It is hard to retain all employees while the company is generating less and less revenues and profit. It’s not surprising that Hyatt made that decision. They might have only this solution and I’m sure they already carefully considered about it.

It might seem to be unethical to lay-off many employees like this. I’m not sure whether the company had ever informed their employees about the company’s situation. If there is a good communication, employees should know any movement relating the decision on Laying-off some employees. They would still be angry but at least they have time to prepare themselves for an uncertainty of their job and they would have time to look for a new job.

In my opinion, the company decision and strategy sometimes depends on the relationship between employers and employees. It also depends on the culture of that country and organization. My family also has our own business which employ around 300-400 workers. During an economic crisis in 1997, the company also has a bid impact. We could lay off our workers to help reducing our costs but we did not do. My father always says that we consider and treat every employee as our family members, so no matter what happen, laying-off won’t be the decision we made. All employees are assured about their job security so this makes them very loyal to the company as well as work efficiently. All workers in the company have a good collaboration and try their best in helping the company cut all costs. This helps our company survival from the disaster of economic crisis that time. Nowadays, our company still holds the same belief and we always concern about the relationship among our employees.

From this article, an economic crisis has a big impact on many parties related. Not only the private sector that has to concern about this, but also the government themselves are responsible for finding solution and policies to support an increasing number of unemployed.

Source:
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/09/24/governor_threatens_a_hyatt_boycott/?page=full