Picketers at Posh N.Y. Hotels Seek End to Labor Dispute

Pickets appeared in front of the Waldorf-Astoria, the Plaza and others of the city’s poshest hotels today urging managements to seek a settlement of a labor dispute that could leave guests making their own beds and carrying their bags by Saturday.

The New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council of the AFL-CIO, which represents 25,000 workers in nine unions, has targeted 45 hotels for strikes if a contract covering employees expires at midnight Friday without a settlement.

A strike would be the first hotel walkout in New York, where tourism is a $2-billion-a-year industry.