Hotel staff protest outside Chicago Hyatt where DSA touting its ‘Workers Deserve More’ program
Apparently, worker solidarity has its limits!
While Democratic Socialists of America bigwigs were inside Chicago’s upscale Hyatt Regency hotel telling more than 2,000 comrades “we need to rebuild labor power” at the Socialism 2026 conference, actual union workers were outside protesting for fair wages and a new contract.
DSA leaders, along with controversial streamer Hasan Piker, held a panel Friday afternoon inside the four-star $500 a night hotel, to discuss the socialist organization’s 2026 program, ironically titled “Workers Deserve More.”
At the same time, hotel employees who are members of UNITE HERE Local 1 picketed outside, many in their work uniforms and holding signs that read “No contract.”
More than 7,000 Chicago hotel workers have been working without a contract since agreements covering 46 hotels expired Monday night.
The Hyatt is owned by Chicago’s wealthy Pritzker family, whose executive chairman, billionaire Thomas Pritzker, stepped down earlier this year after acknowledging “terrible judgment” for his close ties with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and associate Ghislaine Maxwell.
The family has faced years of labor battles with Chicago hotel workers over wages, contract violations and union-busting at its hotels — which have hosted the socialism conference every year since at least 2022.
“Why is Hasan Paker and the DSA speaking at the Socialism 2026 conference inside the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place today, while Unite Here Local 1 workers protest outside for fair wages and a contract?” slammed Brian Costin, who posted the footage on X Friday.
“Will the 2026 Socialism Conference stand in solidarity with the workers? Will they cancel the conference in protest?” he asked. “Apparently, socialist solidarity ends at the hotel doors.”
Inside the hotel, DSA leaders were touting their platform.
“Social democracy got as far as it did because there were people pushing for way more radical things with way more power in sectors of the economy and the workplaces, to show the threat of organized workers being willing to shut stuff down that blocks the profits of those capitalists,” said national DSA co-chair Ashik Siddique.
“So we need to rebuild labor power,” he added, as a “Workers Deserve More” program sat on the table in front of him — seemingly oblivious to the labor struggle unfolding outside the hotel doors.
In one 2018 email exchange with Epstein, Thomas Pritzker agreed to help Epstein’s dentist girlfriend, Karyna Shuliak, arrange a trip to Southeast Asia and asked what she planned to do during the trip.
“Going to try to find a new girlfriend for Jeffrey,” Shuliak wrote.
Pritzker replied with a smiley-face emoji and wrote, “May the Force be with you.”
The Pritzker family is one of the wealthiest in the US — worth an estimated $41 billion, according to a 2024 Forbes estimate.
