Hotel Workers Reject Management’s Offer

Union hotel workers Thursday overwhelmingly rejected the latest contract offer from nine prominent Los Angeles-area hotels, labor sources said, setting the stage for a new level of maneuvering in the seemingly intractable dispute.

Union leaders said they would announce the vote tally and outline their next steps this morning.

Hotel managers said the rejection of their offer would trigger changes in company health insurance that will require employees to contribute for the first time, at $40 a month. The announcement of the co-pay, made last week, has incited anger and anxiety among workers.

Both sides appeared inflexible on the core issue that separates them: the contract’s duration. The union wants a two-year contract that ends in 2006, part of a strategy to line up expiration dates in 10 major U.S. cities that year, giving the union the power to call a national strike.

Hotel negotiators, who are pushing for a five-year contract, have said they would never agree to a two-year deal. Last week, they declared that talks were at an impasse unless the union changed its position. “If we got the length of the contract out of the way, we’d be talking about issues,” Tim Loughman, general director of the Westin Century Plaza and St. Regis hotels, said before the votes were tallied.

Loughman added that if the offer was rejected, the hotels, bargaining jointly as the Los Angeles Hotel Employers Council, would consider going back to the table. But he said the hotels would not budge from their demand of a five-year pact.

The hotels’ contract with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, known as HERE, was due to expire in mid-April but was extended until June 1, when the employers terminated the accord.

Maria Elena Durazo, president of Local 11 of the union, said that she discussed the issue of contract length with workers throughout the daylong vote and that they solidly supported the union strategy. Employers should respect that, she said.

“If they’re serious about listening to the workers, they will take that into account,” Durazo said, “and then we won’t have to take actions and do things like picket lines, marches, contacting customers.”

Hotel representatives have not ruled out the possibility of locking out union members, although they concede it would be an aggressive move. Union leaders also have not ruled out calling a strike but have said they have no plans to do so anytime soon.

The nine hotels -- Sheraton Universal, Westin Bonaventure, Westin Century Plaza, Hyatt Regency Los Angeles, Hyatt West Hollywood, Millennium Biltmore, Regent Beverly Wilshire, St. Regis and Wilshire Grand -- have agreed that they will all lock out their union workers if the union strikes just one. Their agreement also requires all nine to lock out their workers, even in the absence of a strike, if six of the nine hotels back such a move.

More than 2,000 of 2,900 eligible bellmen, housekeepers, banquet servers and other employees, many in uniform, cast ballots throughout the day Thursday at rented meeting rooms at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles.

Union leaders said the high turnout showed that workers were involved and supported the union’s strategy.

All but one of about a dozen workers interviewed said they voted against the offer, as union leaders had recommended. “The company doesn’t respect us,” said Georgia Castaneda, a housekeeper at the Hyatt West Hollywood. “We have to show them that we are strong.”

One union member who voted in favor of the contract said she couldn’t afford to pay $40 a month for health insurance.

At least one hotel, the Westin Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles, sent a letter to workers on the job Thursday reminding them of the health insurance change.

“If you do not make the $10 per week payment,” the letter said, “the Westin Bonaventure Hotel will not make any contributions for healthcare coverage for you and you may lose your eligibility for healthcare coverage.”