“They don’t need to strike. All they gotta do is whisper, and half the city goes cold, hungry, or in the dark.”
Primary Power Base: Loop, Near North Side, Bronzeville, Bridgeport
Reach: Citywide
Veil Involvement: Rumored
Public Face
Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 1 presents itself as a powerful and professional labor union, representing the workers who make Chicago’s hospitality industry run—from bellhops and servers to kitchen porters and hotel maids. They speak the language of wages, benefits, and dignity. Their headquarters is a modest-but-busy office just off Wabash, where they post job placements and publish a monthly bulletin with union wins and political endorsements.True Influence
Behind the scenes, Local 1 has its fingers in every pot—literally. They control hiring lists for dozens of major hotels, backroom access to luxury restaurants, and soft pressure on nightclubs and performance venues that rely on their labor. Outfit operatives launder money through hospitality contracts, and the union’s stewards quietly pass along gossip, blackmail, and opportunity. There are whispers that select waitstaff wear Veil-bound charms to “influence” wealthy patrons—or at least loosen tongues. And when a strike hits? It’s surgical, targeted, and timed to cost someone real power.Known Members
- Maurice "Mo" Lucetti, Union President – ex-line cook turned kingmaker; soft voice, hard eyes
- Irma Bell, Secretary-Treasurer – tracks everything, forgets nothing, rumored to have dirt on half the aldermen
- “Toasty” Wells, Hotel Steward – runs a ghost shift at the Congress Hotel; says the service never stopped, even when the rooms emptied
- Father Merrill, unofficial chaplain – blesses kitchens and occasionally exorcises them
Allies & Rivals
- Allies: Bridgeport Ward Bosses, The Outfit (especially Frontline Operations), select Aldermen on the South Side
- Rivals: Independent hospitality co-ops, IWW-aligned radicals, Arcane Division auditors with questions about "psychosomatic influence"
Assets & Quirks
- Asset: Exclusive control of luxury hotel staffing throughout the Loop and Near North Side; can disrupt major events with a phone call
- Quirk: The union’s “Kitchen Prayer” is said to be older than the union itself and includes references that don’t appear in any Catholic catechism
- Quirk: Some stewards carry pocket knives engraved with names that aren’t their own—nobody talks about who the names belong to
Current Agenda
Local 1 is maneuvering to absorb several smaller, struggling food-service locals—especially in Englewood and Back of the Yards—and push out radical organizers who’ve been stirring up talk about Veil wages and spirit-bound labor. They’ve also quietly agreed to supply logistics for an Outfit-run hotel reopening downtown, which may put them at odds with the Arcane Division if the rumors of “ghost floor service” prove true.Rumors & Hooks
- A banquet server at the Drake vanished mid-shift—left behind a tray, a scream, and a note written in mirror script
- The Congress Hotel’s Veil saturation may be due to an old pact brokered through the union back in 1913; the record is sealed in Irma Bell’s office safe
- Some dishwashers in Bronzeville insist their pots come clean faster when they whistle a tune no one taught them
- A new member claims he saw a “mirror-self” doing his job before he ever clocked in
- Local 1 allegedly owns a three-block stretch of sewer access beneath the Loop—used for moving both labor and leverage
- An old union ledger lists one dues-paying member as “Not Human”—and the payments haven’t stopped
- The PCs are asked to help cover for a steward who saw something impossible in the walk-in freezer at the Blackstone Hotel
- A restaurant opens in Bridgeport with non-union staff, then burns down—no suspects, but the union’s call sheet went quiet for 24 hours after
- One NPC’s brother worked a wedding at the Palmer House and came home speaking a language no one recognized. He hasn’t stopped.
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