Students protest University investments

The student group Princeton for Workers’ Rights is protesting the University’s investments in HEI Hospitality LLC, an owner and operator of upscale hotels and resorts accused of mistreating its workers.

Hilton, Mariott, Sheraton, Westin, Le Méridien and Embassy Suites are among the brands owned by HEI. Referring to these as “sweatshop hotels,” PWR delivered a petition signed by student organizations from over 50 colleges and universities to the administration urging them not to reinvest in HEI.

The Orange County Register reported on Oct. 26 that an Embassy Suites in Irvine, Calif., denied its workers 10-minute breaks, which are mandated by state law. A state Labor Commissioner ordered HEI to pay workers a total of $36,827 in back wages and penalties to seven housekeepers who were denied breaks.

The firm is also accused of retaliating against workers who demand collective bargaining rights and of firing five workers at a Long Beach Hilton who assisted in a state investigation into illegal tax and employment practices.

A Massachusetts court case required HEI to pay $4.5 million in damages to a senior vice president who complained about age discrimination.

HEI has denied the allegations and appealed the rulings against it.

“We have very good relations with our employees,” HEI spokesman Chris Daly said in the Register.

PWR activist Ian Carlin ’12 said that the campaign has been going on since February 2009, when The Daily Princetonian reported that the group had filed a similar petition against the University.

At that time, PWR learned that HEI itself promoted the fact that universities such as Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Penn and Yale were large investors in the firm. PWR also obtained Securities and Exchange Commission’s filings indicating that the University held investments exceeding $90 million in two HEI accounts. Because the University owned more than 10 percent of the shares, it was considered a primary investor.

Carlin said PWR then reached out to President Shirley Tilghman and Andrew Golden, President of the Princeton University Investment Company — the organization responsible for managing the University’s endowment .

“President Tilghman would not admit to even being invested in HEI until we presented the SEC documentation,” Carlin said in an email. “They have consistently declined to take a stance on an issue of investment responsibility.”

University spokesman Martin Mbugua explained in an email that the University holds itself responsible for ensuring workers’ rights when these concerns fall within the University’s domain.

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“Princeton is committed to its role in promoting justice in the workplace when we have the oversight ability to do so — that is, when the workplace is Princeton University,” he said. “We also have taken actions to promote workers’ rights in factories that produce merchandise that carries the Princeton name through our participation in the Fair Labor Association and Worker Right Consortium. Beyond this, we do not play a direct role in issues related to other employers, consistent with our policy ‘against the University as an institution taking a position or playing an active role with respect to external issues of a political, economic, social, moral or legal character.’”

But the movement has gained traction once again due to the Irvine settlement and the demands from protestors affiliated with Occupy Harvard for universities to be more transparent about their endowment figures and the firms in which they invest.

PWR wrote in a press release that students at the Occupy Princeton General Assembly on Thursday, Nov. 17 also indicated their support for the campaign against HEI.

In response, PWR student delegations have reached out to Tilghman, Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Caroline Ainslie and Provost Christopher Eisgruber ’83, asking for a response by Monday, Nov. 28.

“We have not heard a response from them yet but have asked them to publicly announce that they will not reinvest in HEI until they respect worker rights and stop violating the law,” Carlin said.

Carlin made it clear that PWR was not asking the University to divest in HEI, but simply to not reinvest in the firm unless it improved its treatment of workers.

In the past, Princeton has not aligned itself with workers’ rights in similar issues, according to Carlin. When Russell Athletics — which makes University apparel — closed down a Honduras factory after it unionized in 2009, Princeton did not join peer institutions like Columbia, Harvard and Stanford in ending its contract with the firm.

Student pressure eventually persuaded Russell to reopen the factory and allow workers to unionize.