Hotel Workers Picket MCA in Campaign to Save Jobs

About 25 union employees of the Registry Hotel in Universal City demonstrated Tuesday in an effort to force MCA to intervene to save their jobs, which are threatened in what a labor official termed a “union-busting effort” by the hotel’s new buyer.

The 24-story luxury hotel is scheduled to close Jan. 30 when a Taiwan-based firm takes over and to reopen later under new management.

Although officials of Tuntex, the textile and petrochemical company that is buying the hotel, have declined to comment, hotel officials say the company has indicated it will not honor existing union contracts.

Tuesday’s demonstration at MCA’s Universal City headquarters was arranged by Local 11 of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, which represents about 350 of the hotel’s 420 employees, said Steven Dornbusch, union spokesman.

Although MCA owns the land under the hotel, the hotel building is owned by Cigna, a Connecticut-based insurance holding company, which is selling the structure to Tuntex.

Dallas-based Registry Hotels operates the hotel under contract with Cigna.

An MCA official who declined to identify himself said Tuesday that the firm “merely leases the land. It’s not our hotel to sell or to operate.”

Tuntex and Cigna officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Despite MCA’s limited role, Dornbusch said, the union was “convinced they can intervene on our behalf, although it’s clear to us that Cigna and Tuntex are the real villains in this union-busting effort.”

He would not say how MCA could intercede for the union.

Hotel General Manager John Mavros, a Registry Hotels employee, said Cigna has specified that the hotel be “closed Jan. 30 with all employees gone.”

He said that Registry, which has the contract with Local 11, will pay employees four to six weeks severance pay and is helping workers find jobs at the chain’s seven other hotels, none of which are in California.

Mavros said the hotel has had about a 70% occupancy rate, slightly above the average for large hotels, and “we definitely were meeting our operating costs.”

Dornbusch said the union’s 13,000 members, who work at large hotels in the Los Angeles area, average $6 an hour, about $1 higher than non-union counterparts at similar hotels.

“There’s definitely a trend out there to try to kick unions out,” he said. “We’re fighting it.”