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About 80 hotel workers say they were suspended from the Delta Chelsea hotel today for wearing union buttons in a show of solidarity with the AIDS conference.
Room attendants and maintenance workers marched down Bay Street yelling “Shame, shame” after being told to turn in their keys for refusing to take off the buttons.
The black button, which says “lifting one another above the poverty line,” is a mantra for union UNITE HERE, which has worked to raise hotel employee wages. Fastened to the button is a red AIDS ribbon.
AIDS delegates staying at the hotel called the suspensions shameful and said they may reconsider booking at the same hotel in future.
Hotel workers were close to a strike last week, but set it aside so they wouldn’t disrupt the conference that drew 30,000 people to Toronto.