Former hotel staff fights back

Former Courtyard by Marriott employee LeAnne Jarvis received a rude awakening when, just a week after earning employee-of-the-month honors, she was laid off. Jarvis and 11 other since-discarded employees were shocked in late October and early November of 2001, when they were told to pick up their final paychecks.\n"I couldn't believe they did that," Jarvis said. "I was really frustrated and mad. I did a lot for them. I stayed late, worked overtime and got employee of the month; and then they go and get rid of me. I just don't get it."\nAfter eight months of service, often contributing overtime and weekend hours, Jarvis was asked to punch out for the last time for reasons unknown to her.\nThe Courtyard by Marriott, 310 S. College Ave., a Dunn Hospitality Group property, hired new workers, while dismissing 12 former employees. Dunn representatives declined to comment. \nAmong the new hired workers was Martin Mocik, a 19-year-old housekeeper from Czechoslavakia. He said he enjoys the work and has no problems with managers. \n"We need more persons for the work," he said. "We work hard everywhere."\nMary Coop, a former Marriott housekeeper, took the case to the Worker's Rights Board, an organization dedicated to enhancing the rights of working people. The Worker's Rights Board reviewed the case regarding discharged workers Jan. 12, 2002. \nRepresentatives of the Courtyard did not respond to requests for interviews. According to the Worker's Rights Board report, the Courtyard management did not attend the hearing, complicating the possibility of a resolution.\nThe board concluded that the 12 dismissed house keepers were subject to arbitrary treatment. Many of the workers, who earned $6.50 an hour, were hired a short time before they were discharged. Although their periods of employment ranged from three weeks to eight months, none were hired under the condition of temporary employment. \nWorker's Rights Board Director and IU professor Emeritus Milton Fisk commented on the usefulness of the WRB. Others on the hearing panel included education professor Ellen Brantlinger, 2000 Bloomington Human Rights Award winner John Clower and Middle Way House Executive Director Toby Stout. \n"If it weren't for having a group around to make the community aware of these situations, these cases would go unobserved," Fisk said.\nFinancially devastated, workers are still bitter over their discharge. Crystal Powell is one of the former Courtyard housekeepers and had worked for Courtyard for four months.\n"I really needed that job, and I really enjoyed it," Powell said. "I was really mad that some one could fire me after I had been there for so long."\nMary Coop quit prior to what she believed to be her imminent discharge after she witnessed the hiring of foreign workers.\n"It's horrible the Americans are the first to go and the last to know," Coop said. "I quit before I got fired."\nWilma Webb, a former Courtyard housekeeper, has fallen on hard times since her dismissal in early November.\n"This has destroyed me financially," Webb said. "I am 62 years old and alone. No one is here to support me.\n"It's just devastating that I'm an American, and they bring people over here to take our jobs. I wondered why I wasn't told when I applied that I wouldn't have a job in four weeks."\nThe Worker's Rights Board has implored the Courtyard management to reconsider its manner of treating employees and suggested that it adopt a policy of fairness.\n"We are interested in creating an awareness in the community that people are having their lives disrupted because Indiana has no laws to prevent this sort of thing," Fisk said.\nMitch Stevens, assistant general manager at the Courtyard in Bloomington, said he thinks the situation has been blown out of proportion.\n"Layoffs are not unheard of, especially in this town," Stevens said.\nThe reason the Worker's Rights Board exists in Southern Indiana is because the "employment at will status" of Indiana. This means Indiana employers may hire, fire, promote, demote, layoff or suspend employees at their leisure -- as long as they do not discriminate against the employees.\nBloomington House Majority Leader, Mark Kruzan, D-Bloomington, disagrees with this state policy.\n"Utterly unfair would be the two words I'd use to describe that law," Kruzan said. "I think it's so tilted against employees, the only way to describe it is unjust and unfair"