25-Feb-19 – Despite complaints from a children’s hospital that their protests interfered with bereavement rooms, where parents of terminally ill children receive devastating news, striking union members at the hotel next door were allowed by the city to continue their noisy strike, in exchange for the union dropping its lawsuit against the city.

Members of Unite Here Local 1 started their strike on September 7 at 25 Chicago hotels and expanded to 26 hotels on September 11. There were settlements in the strike and by October 11, they were down to one hotel, Cambria Chicago Magnificent Mile, located next to Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital on East Superior Street in Streeterville.

More than three dozen workers are still on strike at Cambria, though their picketing schedule is abbreviated from last fall – 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., every day – and it is quieter. On Saturday afternoon, in the rain, seven striking hotel workers, wearing raincoats and carrying picket signs, walked in circles in front of the Cambria. They shouted as a woman pounded on a drum, but it was a whisper compared to last fall, when all day long, strikers chanted and used megaphones, whistles, drums, even pots and pans to communicate their demands to hotel managers, hotel guests, neighbors of the hotels, and neighboring businesses.

(Left) Front side of Cambria Chicago Magnificent Mile on East Superior Street, showing proximity to Lurie Children’s Hospital (at right in photo).

According to the union, strikers have been quieter since October 17. Before then, at the peak of the strike, despite hundreds of complaints, the city agreed not to cite or arrest strikers for noise between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. if noise-making devices were not used between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.

That deal was cut on September 12 during a conference call between attorneys for Unite Here Local 1 and attorneys for Chicago Police Department.

The truce between strikers and police had to be re-examined on October 17, when staff at Lurie Children’s Hospital asked police to enforce an ordinance prohibiting noise in Quiet Zones located specifically near hospitals.

City attorneys offered to work with the union to identify areas where protests could be relocated to, outside of the hospital’s Quiet Zone, but Local 1, according to Dana Pesha-O’Malley, (right) assistant general counsel to Chicago Police Department, “refused to discuss any solution that involved relocating out of the Quiet Zone.”

The union said the Quiet Zone did not apply to them because, among other reasons, Lurie Children’s Hospital is not in any noise-sensitive zone “marked with signs conspicuously indicating the zone’s boundaries.”

In its lawsuit against the city, filed on October 22, Unite Here Local 1 insisted that its use of megaphones, drums, and other sound-producing devices is “peaceful picketing” and ordinances that prohibit them from making noise violate their First Amendment rights.

The fear of being arrested, said the union in the lawsuit, made picketing difficult for the strikers. “They have chanted so quietly that their chants cannot be heard over ambient noise levels.”

Further aggravating the union was music Cambria played from loudspeakers under its front awning.

“Defendants’ unconstitutional actions come at a crucial time,” said the union, referring to CPD. “After more than a month of picketing in front of the Cambria with bullhorns, whistles, loud chanting, drums, and other instruments – all with defendants’ express permission throughout that time – the Cambria and Local 1 will be engaged in collective-bargaining negotiations.”

The union asked a United States District Court to prohibit the city from citing strikers “for exercising their protected speech rights on public property.”

Settlement further protects noisy strikers from arrest

The lawsuit was settled on December 17, when the city and the union agreed to abide by the original agreement. Strikers would not be cited or arrested for using amplified sound devices between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. if they did not use such devices between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m.

The settlement further clarified that no one would be cited or arrested for generating any sound “solely with the unamplified human voice.” And if police are ever thinking about arresting a striker, attorneys for the city must contact attorneys for the union and give the striker “a reasonable opportunity” to cease and desist before any enforcement action.

According to the settlement agreement, sound produced with amplified devices now is quieter than it was before October 17. The union says it will continue to keep the noise down to no louder than it was before then.

Police caught between complaining citizens and city’s law department

The strike started a week after contracts with about 6,000 hotel workers expired. The union was demanding year-round health insurance for employees laid off during slower winter months.

18th District Police Commander Daniel O’Shea, one of the defendants in the lawsuit, was in a “tough situation,” said 42nd Ward Alderman Brendan Reilly at a Town Hall community meeting on October 24, caught between complaints coming in by the hundreds and the city’s law department, which urged restraint.

(Right) O’Shea (seated) and Reilly at the October 24 community meeting that was hosted by Streeterville Organization of Active Residents.

The strike, said Reilly, “created a tremendous disturbance” for downtown residents. In addition to the noise, Reilly says strikers blocked sidewalks and triggered car alarms.

“Obviously, people have a right to protest – it’s their constitutional right,” said Reilly, “but unfortunately we had a situation where the city’s administration cut a deal and thought it was appropriate for folks to make this kind of noise from seven in the morning till past ten o’clock at night.”

Cambria strikers not quieter, says neighbor

At least one neighbor of Cambria Chicago Magnificent Mile disputes the strikers are quieter compared to last fall. The high-rise resident, who did not want to be identified, says he works out of his home and hears “loud drumming, whistles, bullhorns, and chanting” seven days a week, starting at 7 a.m.

The resident says he spoke with the strikers late last year. He told them he supports their right to protest but asked if they could do so without drums and other loud noise-makers.

“The protesters told me I was talking to the wrong group and needed to take this up with the Cambria management,” said the resident. “I told them that the Cambria wasn’t the one making the noise, to which the woman I spoke with, who said her mother was one of the Cambria housekeeping workers, said, ‘if you really want to support us, you could buy us some donuts.’”