We are asking that the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association honor UNITE HERE (the hotel worker's union) called for boycott of the Columbia Sussex owned property, the Westin San Diego at Emerald Plaza.  We ask that you move your annual conference to another hotel that treats their hard working employees with the dignity and respect they deserve.

Columbia Sussex received a loan for over a billion dollars and has imposed draconian cuts on their workers including: Work speed ups, benefit reductions, higher cost for health insurance, department lay-offs and other economic hardships that you would like wish to see imposed upon you or your family.  The Westin San Diego at Emerald Plaza has ignored our request for card check neutrality so that their workers may decided for themselves if they would like to form a union or not without coercion or intimidation from hotel management. 

The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association along with many speakers from groups that are allies with UNITE HERE and the labor movement in general are scheduled to violate the boycott on Sept 22nd, 2010.  We ask that the GLMA and all speakers scheduled to give presentations at the event honor the boycott of the Westin San Diego at Emerald Plaza by not eating, sleeping or meeting at the hotel. 

Please sign the petition asking our LGBT allies to stand with us in this time of economic uncertainty by moving their conference to one of the many fine hotels in San Diego that treat their employees with respect and fairness.

For more information please visit www.BoycottColumbiaSussex.com

Featured Speakers and organizations who are scheduled to violate the boycott:

Bishop Gene Robinson:  Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire, and is well known for being the first openly gay priest to be ordained a bishop in a major Christian denomination.

Michael Adams
Executive Director
Services & Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE)

Judy Bradford, PhD
Director of the Center for
Population Research in LGBT Health
The Fenway Institute

Jack Drescher, MD
Psychiatrist and Psychoanalyst

Jody Huckaby
Executive Director
Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)

Kenneth H. Mayer, MD
Medical Director
The Fenway Institute

Seth Kilbourn – Current Executive Director for OPENHOUSE

For a complete list of speakers or more information on the conference please visit www.GLMA.org