The nation's largest hotel union opened a nationwide campaign on Wednesday to improve workers' wages with an unusual strategy ? it had John Edwards, the former Democratic candidate for vice president, sit with hotel workers to hear their complaints. The workers and Mr. Edwards have joined an effort by Unite Here to pressure hotels around the nation to improve wages for not just 90,000 unionized hotel workers, but also for more than a million nonunion hotel workers.
See "Eye on Presidency and Ear on Hotel Workers' Grievances", Carolyn Marshall and Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times, February 15, 2006