Hotel Contract Talks Falter as Union Tries Power Ploy

By Nancy Cleeland

June 24, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

High-stakes negotiations between Los Angeles-area hotels and the hotel workers union have broken down, as national chains like Hyatt and Sheraton resist the union’s novel plan to line up contract expiration dates across the country, opening the door to a national strike.

Union leaders, who want contracts in 10 major cities to expire in 2006, say that kind of clout -- and the threat of a potentially disruptive nationwide walkout in two years -- would allow them to substantially drive up wages and benefits for housekeepers, bellboys and banquet servers.

Hotel attorney Ken Ballard said the industry, which is pulling out of a three-year slump, was not about to hand over that kind of power.

“It’s very unclear to us what the union’s agenda would be, how moderate or reasonable they would be,” said Ballard, who represents the Los Angeles Hotel Employers’ Council in negotiations. “It would be a very difficult situation.”

New York, Boston and Chicago are already in line. Los Angeles would be the fourth city with a 2006 contract expiration. And in the next three months, contracts in San Francisco and Washington will be open for negotiations.

The national strategy was mapped out by John Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, or HERE, and one of five union presidents pushing for fundamental changes in the labor movement. The group advocates a national approach to negotiations.

Currently, each union local makes deals separately with hotels in its area, an approach that Wilhelm said no longer made sense after waves of consolidation in the industry.

The hotel council contract covers nine major hotels. An additional eight hotels are covered under separate contracts that are likely to follow the council’s agreement closely.

Together, the 17 union hotels include some of the area’s most prestigious, including the Hyatt Regency, Millennium Biltmore and Westin Bonaventure in downtown Los Angeles, the Westin Century Plaza and the Sheraton Universal. They employ about 4,000 union housekeepers, bellhops, banquet servers and others.

The Los Angeles contract expired June 1 after several months of extensions. Without a contract, the union could strike or the hotels could lock out union workers. Neither side has ruled out those possibilities, but no plans appear to be imminent.

After three months of slow negotiations, the issue of the expiration date came to a head this week. The union is seeking a two-year pact so that it will expire in 2006.

On Monday, union leaders said they would put the hotels’ latest offer -- which provides moderate wage and pension increases under a five-year contract -- to a membership vote July 1. They expect members to solidly reject it, sending a message to the hotel council that it will lose the fight on the expiration date.

Late Tuesday, the hotels came back with a move of their own: They declared that negotiations had reached an impasse, meaning that talks are over until the union gives in on its 2006 expiration demand.

“We hope at some point the union sits down and says let’s negotiate a contract that does not expire in two years,” Ballard said. “Until then, we’re at impasse.”

What happens next is unclear. Union negotiators say there is no real impasse because they are still willing to discuss all parts of the contract. Maria Elena Durazo, president of HERE Local 11, said the union might file a legal challenge to the hotel council’s declaration.

If negotiations are truly at an impasse, which would be determined by the National Labor Relations Board, the hotels would be able to impose terms of the contract they last offered. Under that scenario, the balance of power could tilt slightly toward the hotel council.

On the other hand, a strong rejection of the current contract offer by union members could shift power back toward them. And the clock is ticking in other cities. The San Francisco contract expires in August, the Washington pact in September.

The hotel offer, for the first time, requires workers to contribute to health insurance, at $10 a week.

“We have made a good, fair and equitable offer to Local 11 that would immediately benefit our employees in many ways,” Ballard said.

But Durazo called the insurance co-payment a step backward and said it would more than wipe out raises. She said hotel negotiators had refused to address a major concern of housekeepers: workloads that she said required some to skip lunch breaks.

Durazo said she expected members to strongly reject the offer, showing that they are willing to risk losing the wage increase to fight for a longer-term national strategy.

The failure of the United Food and Commercial Workers union to win its local fight against national supermarket chains this year showed why a national approach was needed, Durazo said.

“Watching the UFCW strike absolutely struck a chord with our members,” she said. “It was a lesson on how much money these corporations can lose to fight a group of local workers.”

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Union hotels

Los Angeles-area hotels with workers represented by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union:

* Crystal Park Casino Hotel, Compton

* Fairmont Miramar, Santa Monica

* Furama Hotel, Westchester

* Holiday Inn, downtown Los Angeles

* Hotel Bel-Air

* Hyatt Regency, downtown Los Angeles

* Millennium Biltmore, downtown Los Angeles

* Radisson Wilshire Plaza

* Renaissance Hollywood