Hotel Trades Council Closing Health Centers


Richard Maroko with Brooklyn Health Center & Pharmacy and Harlem Health Center & Pharmacy (New York Hotel Trades Council, Google Maps, Cornell)
Thousands of New York City hotel workers have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus. Now, their union is being forced to slash the health benefits it provides its members.
The New York Hotel Trades Council is shutting down two of its employee health centers — including the $120 million Brooklyn facility it opened in 2017 — and reducing operations at four others in Manhattan and Queens, according to a notice with the state Department of Labor. The other center it’s closing is in Harlem.
The reductions will impact 642 employees at those locations.
The move is a significant blow to the powerful hotel union, which has long been able to provide good-paying jobs for its roughly 40,000 working-class members through tough negotiations with hotel owners to secure