NLRB Complaint Accuses 2 Hotels, Maids’ Union of Unfair Practices
The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint Wednesday alleging unfair labor practices by the Holiday Inns in Burbank and Glendale and by the union that represents about 180 maids and other workers at the hotels.
The complaint contends that the hotels’ owner, Joseph A. Perry, harassed employees who engaged in union activity and threatened to fire some of them. It also alleges that Local 531 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union discriminated against some of its members and acted in bad faith by entering into an employer-dominated labor agreement, or “sweetheart” contract, with Perry.
The complaint stems from charges filed with the board earlier this year by the Los Angeles Center for Law and Justice and by a housekeeper at the Burbank hotel.
Since February, the center has been representing about 30 members of the Glendale hotel’s housekeeping staff, most of them Latinas, who walked off the job, charging Perry with unfair treatment and the union with failing to represent their interests.
According to Antonio Rodriguez, an attorney at the center, the housekeepers said they were forced to accept a union they had not chosen and a contract that reduced their wages, in most cases to $3.40 an hour. Wages previously had been as high as $4.25 an hour.
The contract also did away with medical insurance and other benefits the workers had before they were unionized.
“It’s our contention that the union would not have entered into such a contract if the workers had not been women, and Latinas in particular,” Rodriguez said. “It’s the worst contract I’ve ever seen.”
Perry acknowledged Thursday that he had received the complaint but declined to comment on the allegations.
Sam Nuckolls, an organizer for the local, said Thursday that he knew nothing of the complaint. He denied that the union had negotiated a sweetheart contract.
“Nobody likes it,” Nuckolls said of the contract, described by another union official as a “foot-in-the-door contract.”
“We intend to start negotiating on the economic package next week,” Nuckolls added. “We’ll probably go on strike, knowing Perry.”
According to the terms of the disputed contract, the women were subject to termination when they walked out Feb. 12. Last week, however, the hotel offered to take all of them back.
The complaint also cites alleged abuses involving employees of the Burbank Holiday Inn. Perry owns that hotel, as well as a third Holiday Inn in Long Beach.
In January, 28 Latina maids and laundry workers walked out of the Burbank Holiday Inn, led by the hotel’s executive housekeeper, Gloria Tartaglione of Hollywood. Tartaglione, who is a non-union employee, said she led the walkout because she was no longer willing to enforce Perry’s policies.
“I want to retire with peace in my heart,” she said.
Tartaglione said that her maids, most of whom speak only Spanish, were forbidden to use mops and had to scrub bathroom floors on their hands and knees. They were transferred and laid off when they displeased Perry, she said. She also alleged that Perry pressured the staff into joining Local 531.
Allowed to Mop
Tartaglione is on leave from her Holiday Inn job. Most of the women who walked out with her are back at work at the hotel and are now allowed to mop instead of scrub.
During their walkouts the women picketed the two hotels, often with children beside them. Edith Fox, a veteran labor organizer who frequently visited the picket lines to show her support, described the NLRB’s complaint as “an important victory for all labor, especially women and foreign workers, the most vulnerable and the most exploited.”
A hearing on the complaint is scheduled for Oct. 7 before an administrative law judge of the NLRB.
