Why American Rabbi fights Frank Lowy

Date: 27 September 2002

An American Rabbi who has come out in support of the Sydney Hilton Hotel workers is also busily campaigning on behalf of San Diego shopping mall cleaners employed at one of high-profile Australian businessman Frank Lowy's Westfield Shopping Malls.

Rabbi Laurie Coskey from San Diego, California, is one of more than 2500 people who have sent e-mails to the management of the Sydney Hilton Hotel calling on them to treat with respect the nearly 500 workers they plan to sack in November so they can spend $400 million on a face lift for the hotel.

The Rabbi is a key leader in a fight against the Australian shopping mall king - Frank Lowy - over the meagre wages paid to cleaners in his seven San Diego Westfield Shoppingtown malls.

Rabbi Coskey has now helped organise clergy across America to send letters to the top executive of the Sydney Hilton Hotel, Mr Oded Lifschitz, to protest his treatment of hotel workers.

" I got an e-mail about the Sydney Hilton workers crisis through HERE Local 30 ( the North American hotel workers union). We have worked on several campaigns with them. They are key partners in our work.

" Here in San Diego we work closely with low-waged workers in the service sector. Showing solidarity with room attendants and other hotel workers in Sydney was an easy thing for us to support."

In a long interview on the LHMU website she discusses how the alliance between unions and faith communities works in the USA - and how similar coalitions could be built here in Australia.

Rabbi Laurie Coskey is the director of the San Diego Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, and this week led a group of clergy in a civil disobedience protest at the US head office of Westfield in Los Angeles.

Frank Lowy - the second richest man in Australia - bought himself some great cheap, positive headlines a few days back when he announced that he was handing over his $11 million in annual wages to charity, to thank Australia for the fifty good years he has had here since arriving as a penniless migrant.

But the immigrant low-waged workers in the USA who clean his shopping malls aren't impressed.

You can read the full text of Rabbi Coskey's comments on the LHMU Hotel Union's website at:

http://www.lhmu.org.au/

Rabbi Coskey is available for comment on tel: 0011 1 619 584-5744 ext. 22

For further information about the Sydney Hilton Hotel campaign contact:Andrew Casey 02 8204 7206

For further information

Contact:	Andrew Casey
Union:	Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union
Phone:	8204 7206
Fax:	92821 4480
Email:	andrewc@lhmu.org.au
WWW:	http://www.lhmu.org.au/

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