Less than a week after Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s venture capital firm sold Seadog Cruises, a tour guide who made waves when he tried to unionize the company last fall learned he was out of a job.
Billy Dean, who worked as a docent the three previous seasons with company, doesn’t believe the explanation he was given that all the company’s positions were full. Now he’s accusing his bosses of illegally getting back at him in response to his very public organizing efforts, including his confrontation of Pritzker which was posted online.
“Yes, absolutely, it’s 100 percent in retaliation,” said Dean. “They’ve actively gone out of their way to force me out.”
RELATED: Pritzker cruise company takes 180, now supports union effort
On May 2, Dean filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board charging that his former employer is in violation of a law that prevents employers from failing to recall seasonal workers “because they support the union or engage in union activities.”
Pete DeMay, an organizer with the Chicago and Midwest Joint Board of Workers United, a division of SEIU that the Seadog workers wanted to join, called it a “clear case” of retaliation.
“It’s disgusting. This is an employee who had stellar reviews and all of a sudden he’s blackballed,” said DeMay. “He should be recalled immediately and we’re working with Billy to make sure justice is done.”
Dan Russell, vice president of the Chicago-based Entertainment Cruises, which owns Seadog, declined to comment, saying the company could not publicly discuss employment applications.
Dean first made waves in August by confronting Pritzker on video and asking the then-gubernatorial candidate why Entertainment Cruises — at that time owned by the Pritzker Group — was quashing their organizing efforts. Seadog management had posted anti-union signs and allegedly spread rumors that employees would no longer be able to collect tips if they unionized.
Pritzker’s barely audible response to Dean was that he’d heard of the situation and “you know my stance” before walking away. After seeing the video of the encounter on social media, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) sent Pritzker’s office a letter accusing the candidate of hypocrisy, writing: “I find it shocking that you would oppose an organizing effort…given your stated support for unions and collective bargaining.”
When members of the union confronted Pritzker on-camera a second time a few weeks later, the billionaire businessman took a more diplomatic tone, noting that his company “shouldn’t stand against the union” and that he wanted “free and fair elections.”
The next day, Entertainment Cruises issued a public statement in support of “the right of our shipmates to engage in organization activities.”
But the company continued to meet with Seadog employees to pressure them against the union, said DeMay. The unionization vote ultimately failed by five votes, which organizers blame on the election being held in mid-October, when many Seadog workers had already been let go for the season.
“It was unfortunate that J.B. campaigned with union backing but couldn’t figure out a way to be more influential in this case,” said DeMay. “It’s disheartening that a company owned by wealthy white 1 percenters would employ mostly people of color earning at or near minimum wage and then engaged in union busting.”
Dean still expected to return to work for his fourth year. But he alleges that the company “secretly changed the rehiring process” with managers sending text messages to individual employees instead of formal emails. When he didn’t receive any communications in the first few months of 2019, Dean submitted a new application on April 10.
Two weeks later, on April 23, a Seadog manager emailed Dean and told him his job was already taken.
In an emailed statement, Pritzker spokesman Jordan Abudayyeh told the Sun-Times that Pritzker “no longer has an ownership stake in Entertainment Cruises, which was sold in April according to public records.” The governor had previously put his business assets in a blind trust when he took office in January.
According to Bloomberg, the Pritzker Group officially sold Entertainment Cruises to Hornblower Cruises, a San Francisco company, on April 16.
The timing of the rejection email now looks suspicious to Dean considering that it came so soon after the sale of the company.
“Maybe that’s not connected, but [it’s] incredibly strange and suspicious,” Dean said.
