Bush Won’t Cross Picket Line to Sleep, but He Will to Eat

Because of a continuing labor dispute at the Disneyland Hotel, Vice President George Bush has canceled plans to stay there Sunday after participating in a campaign fund-raiser.

Bush, however, will cross a picket line at the hotel Sunday night to attend the $200-per-person fund-raiser for Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove), at which the vice president is the featured speaker, according to Brian O’Leary Bennett, Dornan’s chief of staff.

The Bush party changed hotels “so there would be no embarrassment” because of the labor dispute, hotel Vice President Judi Cabrera said Friday.

Instead, Bush and his entourage have booked about 100 rooms at the nearby Emerald of Anaheim Hotel, Bennett said.

When Bush crosses the Disneyland Hotel picket lines, however, leaders from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 681 have vowed that “hundreds of demonstrators” from Los Angeles and Orange counties will be there to protest his action.

The demonstration will be “loud but peaceful,” Bill Granfield, a union organizer, said.

He added that Los Angeles AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Bill Robertson and Orange County Central Labor Council Executive Director Mary Yunt were asked to get the word out to their members to join the protest.

“There’s a major function happening there, and we think of it as an opportunity to continue to inform the public of our poverty wages and unfair treatment at the Disneyland Hotel,” Granfield said.

Asked if the unions would be busing members into Anaheim, Granfield said, “We might.”

The Disneyland Hotel’s nearly 1,200 hotel and restaurant workers have been working without a contract since Feb. 28. Their protest in Anaheim is part of a national organizing effort by the union that has included related actions in Washington, Chicago, Boston and New Haven, Conn.

Officials from the Disneyland Hotel said, however, that they did not believe the union would muster a large demonstration Sunday. The union has repeatedly exaggerated the size of its protests, Ric Morris, the hotel’s labor relations director, contended.

Union officials, meanwhile, countered that Morris has repeatedly tried to underestimate the size of the protests.

According to Bennett, Dornan’s aide, the union’s international office last week “wired the vice president’s office, asking him not to attend the Dornan fund-raiser because of the contract dispute. Then over the weekend, the vice president’s office and myself began talking about what to do. And, not wanting to take sides in the dispute--it’s none of our business--” Bush’s staff decided he would stay in another hotel, Bennett said.

The dinner site could not be changed, however. “It’s obvious to the vice president’s staff and to the union that, with only seven days’ notice, we could not move a 700-people dinner,” Bennett added.

“We’re not looking to offend the labor union. We’re not looking to offend the Disneyland Hotel. So the vice president stays at another hotel and goes to the Disneyland for the fund-raiser,” Bennett said.

He added: “We really don’t know the extent of the labor problems . . . but we do know they (labor union leaders) are looking to capitalize on the event to highlight their labor dispute. We don’t have a problem with it. That’s the American way. Just as long as it’s orderly, we don’t have any problems with it.”

Asked if there were concerns for the vice president’s security, Bennett said, “I’m not at liberty to say. But be assured that the vice president’s security will be provided for.”

Morris said the hotel would be complementing its normal Sunday night staff of about six or seven people with five or six extra security guards.