Marriott Hotel Staff
Gaetan Horton
The Quarter Century Club (QCC) is a program for Marriott employees and former employees who have provided 25 or more years of dedicated service at Marriott-managed properties. The program rewards members with complimentary rooms or villas at participating Marriott managed locations and continued access to Explore Rates.
Any other costs, such as meals, recreational activities, or parking are not discounted and must be paid for by the QCC member, unless the QCC member is eligible for another discount under the Explore Rate Discount Program. At all-Inclusive hotels only the room portion of the rate is complimentary.
Cancellation of reservations must be requested by contacting the QCC Customer Engagement Center at +1 (800) 826-1882 or via email at SalesS...@marriott.com. Failure to timely and properly cancel unused reservations may result in revocation of QCC member privileges at the hotel for the remainder of the calendar year.
QCC members booking at All-Inclusive hotels are responsible for accurately identifying the number of guests staying in the room at the time of booking. Any change to the number of guests, or ages of the guests may result in a rate change.
The Quarter Century Club (QCC) is a program available only to qualifying long-service employees and former employees of Marriott. Additional terms and conditions apply as to eligibility, availability, reservations, cancellations, and other aspects of the QCC program. The QCC program may be enhanced, modified, limited, or terminated in whole or in part without prior notice. Misuse of the QCC program may result in termination of all privileges.
Even now, as the coronavirus crisis has forced Marriott to furlough tens of thousands of its staff, the company's leadership team remains committed to serving its employees as well as it can. CEO Arne Sorenson forfeited his salary for the year, and the rest of its executives pledged to cut their pay in half to reduce the financial burden on employees.
Business leaders in almost every industry agree that differentiation in the coming years will be a matter of offering superior customer experiences. When products and prices are similar, better experiences have the power to drive loyalty and create brand affinity among a consumer base that has more options than ever.
After a recent acquisition and other major organizational changes, Marriott wanted to ensure its marketing team of more than 300 staff members was aligned on purpose. It partnered with Mitchell, a public relations firm, to organize a multi-day conference aimed at empowering the team with a clear purpose, resources to help drive their performance, and positive interactions with leadership. The experience gave the team a better understanding of the hotel business and its core business objectives, setting the stage for the next phase of growth.
Today, employee well-being looks like leadership salary cuts to get the company through the COVID-19 crisis, and the hospitality company is still providing furloughed employees with health insurance. Crisis aside, Marriott is a leading employer of veterans, ethnic minorities, workers with disabilities, and other segments often underrepresented in the modern workforce. The company also makes sure work-life balance meets employee expectations by giving birth mothers up to 15 weeks of paid parental leave and eight weeks to fathers and adoptive parents.
Thousands of hotel workers in eight U.S. cities say they'll remain off the job until a new contract is reached with Marriott International. About 7,700 employees of the world's largest hotel chain are now walking picket lines in Boston, Detroit, Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, as well as two cities in Hawaii.
Represented by the labor union Unite Here, the workers are calling for higher wages, rules guarding them against sexual harassment and protections from being replaced by technology. Among other demands aimed at improving working conditions, they are also asking the company to equip hotel staff with "panic buttons" in case guests become threatening or violent.
"Marriott is the richest and most profitable hotel company in the world, and by taking them on in this historic hotel worker strike, Unite Here union members are going to change the lives of all workers in our industry," D. Taylor, international president of the union, said in a statement.
Marriott said in a statement that it's disappointed that the union had called a strike, but said its hotels remain open. "While we respect our associates' rights to participate in this work stoppage, we also will welcome any associate who chooses to continue to work," a spokesperson for Marriott said by email.
Union members walked off their jobs at Marriott properties in four California cities last week, with workers in Detroit joining the work stoppage on Sunday and employees in Hawaii following suit on Monday. Workers in additional cities may strike "at any time," according to Unite Here.
"We put a couple things on the table and nothing is happening, so it's got to resort to this," Stephen Easley, a cook at a Hilton in San Francisco, who marched alongside Marriott workers on Monday. "We got to be heard some way," he added.
"We're asking for significant raises that bring workers up above the poverty line. We want people to be able to work full-time at Marriott and still be able to provide for their families. We're looking at dollars on the hour raises," Rachel Gumpert, a spokesperson for the local chapter of the union, told a CBS affiliate in San Francisco.
In Boston, members of the visiting New York Yankees caused a ruckus on Friday by crossing the picket line to enter the Marriott-owned Ritz-Carlton, giving Boston Red Sox fans another ax to grind against their archrival. The Yankees weren't the only professional sports team to cross another union's picket line, with the National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers also causing a stir while in Boston for a game against the Bruins.
Contracts covering about 12,000 bellhops, front-desk clerks, housekeepers and restaurant workers expired in July and August, and workers authorized the strike actions three weeks ago. Unite Here and Marriott returned to to bargaining table two weeks ago, but failed to reach agreement.
Separately, Unite Here has resolved contract disputes involving thousands of hotel workers at two dozen properties including those owned by Hilton and Hyatt in Chicago, where strikes began in September.
In 1991, Marriott opened the 37-story, 504-room Financial Center Marriott two blocks from the World Trade Center. It was the only competition for the nearby Vista International hotel, which was nestled between the massive 110-story Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.
Two years later, in February 1993, Islamic terrorists, attempting to bring down the Twin Towers, planted a bomb in the parking garage of Vista International. The explosion killed six people, injured 1,000 others, and caused major damage to the hotel. The power of the blast was felt at the nearby Financial Center Marriott.
At that point, the Port Authority owned the Vista. After the bombing, it was renovated and reopened in 1994. Host Marriott bought it for $141.5 million in 1995 and renamed it the New York Marriott World Trade Center. Business mogul and Latter-day Saint Bill Marriott was thrilled with the acquisition and had no qualms about another terrorist attack. Since that location had been bombed before, security in the hotel was extensive.
No one in the hotel could tell what had happened to the north tower because the gaping hole and fireball were not visible from any Marriott vantage point. But most of the guests knew enough to get out, using the stairs. However, Leigh Gilmore, a 42-year-old woman from Chicago with multiple sclerosis who was dependent on her motorized wheelchair, could do nothing but huddle with her mother in her fifth-floor room. Then a second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, struck the south tower at 9:03 a.m. Minutes later, two Marriott maintenance men found the Gilmores and rushed them onto a freight elevator to get them to safety.
By this time, the Marriott had also become an evacuation portal for those fleeing the Twin Towers through the door that connected the hotel to the north tower. Companies of firemen and Marriott staff directed more than 1,000 frightened people through the lobby to an exit onto Liberty Street. Debris and bodies were still dropping from above, so a policeman stood at the exit door to hold up the line sporadically when falling objects were spotted. Because of that corridor of safety, the Marriott hotel saved many lives.
In his 19th-floor room at the WTC Marriott, guest Frank Razzano thought he was safe. The Washington, D.C., lawyer assumed firemen would put out the high-level conflagration, and he thought he had plenty of time to leave the hotel. He showered, shaved, and packed his belongings and legal papers. He was about to call for a bellman to pick up his luggage when the south tower, after burning for 56 minutes, collapsed at 9:59 a.m., registering 2.1 on the Richter scale.
The 10-second collapse occurred inside a veil of smoke, so it appeared that the building simply imploded, falling straight down, but that was not the case. The top 30 or 40 floors broke off, pivoted, and fell eastward onto a neighboring office building. Other sections were propelled northwest toward Battery Park, while a few sections landed on the WTC Marriott, cleaving it in half. As this curtain of concrete and debris fell past his window, Razzano hugged the wall next to the door, certain that these were the last few moments of his life. Have I led a good life? Would my parents be proud of me? he wondered.
Meanwhile, the same reinforced I-beams had saved not only Razzano but also, in the southern stairwell, 13 firemen led by Jeff Johnson of Engine Company 74. A single, narrow slice of the Marriott had survived. Razzano and the firemen found each other, and together they made an agonizingly slow 30-minute descent down the stairs over and around blocking debris. They were at the second floor when the north tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m. after burning for 102 minutes.
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