MIAMI BEACH, Fla. _ To many of Miami's hospitality workers, the racism and indifference portrayed in the video showing a Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of George Floyd until he died as three other officers watched felt familiar.
The largely Black and brown immigrant workforce that makes Miami's tourism economy run was struggling to get by even before the COVID-19 pandemic torpedoed the industry. Long ago pushed out of Miami Beach due to exploding real estate prices, the workers have also seen wages stagnate.
On Monday, local hotel workers joined the National Strike for Black Lives, a country-wide protest by janitors, nursing home workers and fast food workers to call attention to inequality. Housekeepers, bellmen, porters and cooks from the Fontainebleau, Miami-Dade's largest hotel, knelt together on the sidewalk across the street from Miami Beach City Hall as bus drivers and people going into a nearby coronavirus testing site honked in support.
"We need insurance, we can't go to the doctor," said Joseph Louis, 55, who has worked as a porter at the Fontainebleau for 13 years. "If nothing changes, we'll have to sleep outside the hotel."
Louis lost his job in March along with 2,082 other Fontainebleau employees when a city order closed the hotel's doors. The hotel, owned by real estate mogul Jeffrey Soffer, stopped paying required contributions to the workers' health insurance fund and is suing the hotel workers' union, Unite Here Local 355, asking a federal judge to exempt it from the payments. By contrast, the St. Regis Bal Harbour Resort, a Marriott; the Diplomat Beach Resort, a Hilton; and the Hyatt Regency Miami have all continued to contribute to laid-off employee health insurance funds during the pandemic, according to the union.
In its lawsuit, the Fontainebleau called the ongoing economic fallout from COVID-19 "the worst business conditions the American lodging and hospitality industry has ever known." In April, the hotel's nearly $975 million commercial mortgage-backed securities loan entered into a renegotiation process called "special servicing."
Bearing the brunt of the fallout are the workers, who have struggled to sustain themselves and their families while waiting for unemployment benefits to arrive. Miami Beach turned down a proposal from the union to provide cash assistance to laid off hotel workers in March, and instead dedicated 14 city employees to help them navigate the state's notoriously difficult and slow system.
The city has provided assistance to more than 448 people, 45 of whom voluntarily disclosed their employers as hotels, according to Melissa Berthier, a city representative.
Louis, who lives with his wife and two children in Little Haiti, finally received his unemployment funds in May, one and a half months after applying.
Data released by the U.S. Small Business Administration and the U.S. Treasury Department show Fontainebleau Development LLC, Soffer's company, received between $1 million and $2 million in taxpayer dollars through the Paycheck Protection Program after it closed the hotel in late March. None of the 1,077 hotel workers represented by the union were brought back on payroll during April and May, according to the union.
The Fontainebleau said it only planned to support 87 jobs with the funds. Elyse Eisen, a spokesperson for the firm, declined to comment. Through a representative, Miami-based City National Bank of Florida, which approved the Fontainebleau's loan, declined to comment.
When Rick Sanchez, 56, found out that the hotel was cutting health insurance during the pandemic, he said he felt betrayed.
"It reminds me of the George Floyd incident ... . Right now, the Fontainebleau, I feel that they have their knee on our necks," he said. "We can't breathe. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. We leave our blood, sweat and tears in that hotel. As of today, I can't pick up a prescription unless I pay full price."
Sanchez returned to his job as a bellman in June with 269 other employees to find that the Fontainebleau was remodeling the lobby bar. He said working in the lobby every day during the renovation felt like a slap in the face. A spokesperson for the hotel Josh Herman said the lobby bar renovation was funded before the pandemic began.
Thirty-six workers who returned in June have been sent home after the hotel's restaurants were ordered to close earlier this month, according to the union. At least two workers have tested positive for COVID-19 since returning to work.
"This Jeffrey Soffer, the owner, is doing this to us," Sanchez said, tears falling from his eyes down behind his Black Lives Matter mask. "All we want to do is work and get paid what we need to get paid and get the insurance we are entitled to to be able to provide for my family. It's so bad, we're getting kicked to the curb by this company during this time of need. They say life is not fair, but man, this is not right."
