NYRA

Harass rap vs. union

• By LIZ SADLER and JEANE MACINTOSH
• Last Updated: 11:38 AM, January 24, 2012
• Posted: 12:58 AM, January 24, 2012

EXCLUSIVE

Workers at a downtown hotel charge that union goons resorted to outrageous tactics to browbeat them into joining their ranks — going so far as to photograph a female staffer as she changed clothes in an employee locker room, apparently to blackmail her.
“I was wearing my uniform pants and my bra and holding my shirt to put it on when they started snapping pictures,” front-desk worker Gisel Rodriguez, 28, recalled of the alleged sneak attack at the SoHo Courtyard Marriott in December.
“I was furious, really didn’t know what to do,’’ she said. “They said, ‘We’re allowed to be here,’ and clicked away.”

Robert Kalfus

FUROR: Marriott worker Gisel Rodriguez says union reps took pics of her changing clothes.

Rodriguez said she believes the union reps wanted to use the photos “as blackmail, to get us to sign.”
She and two colleagues — security guard David Alexander and front-desk worker Coralina Alcantara — have since filed federal charges with the National Labor Relations Board against Marriott and the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council claiming intimidation, harassment and coercion.
The trio accuses the union’s local reps, including organizer Julia Rybak, of carrying on a months-long abusive and intrusive campaign that destroyed the family-like work environment for the small hotel’s 35 to 40 employees.
Union spokesman John Turchiano blasted the charges as “bogus and laughable.”
“I’m 100 percent confident the [NLRB] will throw out the charges. Any of our hundreds of members who know the organizers involved here know how absurd these charges are,’’ he said.
Marriott management, which deals with the union at some of its other hotels, has taken the union’s side, persecuting the SoHo employees after they complained, the workers allege.
SoHo Marriott management did not return calls.
Rodriguez, who has worked for Marriott Corp. for five years, said the bizarre photo incident occurred one afternoon as she was leaving work to go home.
“I turned around and saw Julia [Rybak] and [a male union rep]. Julia had a camera phone, and she just snapped pictures. I said, ‘What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be here.’
“I have no idea what [Julia] could be doing with the pictures, and I think that’s the worst part.’’
Rodriguez didn’t file a police report but told a Marriott lawyer about the incident.
Calls to Rybak were returned by Turchiano, who said the incident “didn’t happen.”
Rodriguez, Alexander and Alcantara also claim that front-desk and security staff were segregated from housekeeping and engineering workers in the break room.
The National Right to Work Foundation filed the federal claim on behalf of the three workers.
jeane.macintosh@nypost.com