Airport Food Workers’ Talks Stalemated : Labor: Host International’s profits from high-priced food and gift shop items at Lindbergh Field are key issues in dispute between union and management.
VerdaBean hears the complaints every day from airport visitors who purchase food at the Lindbergh Field concession stands run by Host International.
“They complain about the outrageous prices we charge for everything. And they have a right to. A cup of water costs 50 cents and an empty cup 27 cents. But they’re wrong when they think all that money ends up in our paychecks. The cheeseburger, fries and Coke you buy at the airport cost more than what many of my fellow workers make per hour,” said Bean, a cashier and six-year Host employee.
The high cost of food and gift shop items at Lindbergh Field, and the role it plays in Host’s profits, has become a key issue in a labor dispute between the union that represents about 190 Host employees at the airport, and the Marriott Corporation, which owns Host.
Talks between the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, Local 30 and Marriott have bogged down, following a failed attempt in March to decertify the union. The old labor contract expired Dec. 31.
Host recently dared the union to strike following the company’s final “take it or leave it” offer. Although the union has not taken a strike vote, the dispute has become increasingly bitter.
Some influential labor leaders are warning that a strike by Host employees could jeopardize operations at Lindbergh Field, if the other airport unions honor Local 30’s picket line.
For its part, Host is applying additional pressure on the union to settle quickly by announcing that it will not award retroactive pay when a new contract is signed.
County labor officials, including Joe Francis, secretary-treasurer of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council, met with Port of San Diego Director Don Nay last week to express their concern over the stalled talks. The Port District administers Lindbergh Field.
Labor leaders are also hoping to put pressure on Marriott by urging Port officials to require the company to comply with the Port’s policy that calls for airport businesses to pay prevailing wages. Local 30 negotiators said that Host’s Los Angeles employees earn up to 35% more than their San Diego counterparts.
In addition to the company’s labor problems, Host is also under pressure by Port officials to subcontract some of their services at the airport to minority contractors. Last year, Port officials rejected as too low a Host proposal to subcontract 18% of the company’s operation to minorities. However, Port officials acknowledge that they have not given the company a goal for minority participation.
The Port’s action was not lost on Local 30 officials, who point out that minorities and women make up about 70% of their membership.
Meanwhile, the union and Marriott remain far apart on wages, which have turned out to be the main stumbling blocks in the contract talks.
A cheeseburger, fries and small soft drink cost $5.62 at Host’s airport concession stands. Bill Granfield, an organizer for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, said that about 50% of the union’s members who work at the airport earn about $4.50 an hour.
“We typically pay higher than average wages (for similar work) in the San Diego market area to attract better employees,” said Rick Sneed, Marriott’s Washington spokesman.
However, Host’s claim of having well-paid employees is contested by Granfield. He charged that many Host workers are paid little more than minimum wage, forcing most employees to work a second job to make ends meet.
According to the union, minimum pay for Host employees ranges from $4.25 an hour for utility workers to $6.22 an hour for fry cooks at Lindbergh. At Los Angeles International Airport, minimum pay ranges from $5.27 an hour for utility employees to $7.83 for bartenders.
Ivan Neal, who has worked 12 years as a dishwasher for Host at Lindbergh Field, currently earns $5.54 an hour.
“We’re the ones making the big profits for the company, but they don’t want to give us anything in return,” said Neal.
The company’s final offer on a three-year contract was 20 cents a year for non-tipped employees and 10 cents and 15 cents a year for tipped employees, Granfield said. The union is asking for an 8% increase per year for non-tipped workers and 6% per year for tipped workers, he added.
“The low wages they pay our members, and many other workers across the country, enable Marriott to make obscene profits. It’s shameful,” said Granfield. “The main issue is money. We want a decent pay increase for our members.”
Sneed declined to discuss the contract talks. He put the company’s nationwide sales at $3.9 billion. But the union’s research staff listed the company’s sales, and that of its subsidiaries, at $7.5 billion for 1989.
Sneed said his company did not have a breakdown of its sales at Lindbergh Field.
However, figures released by the Port of San Diego show that Host, which is seeking a 5- to 10-year extension on its lease that expires in 1994, is doing well at Lindbergh Field.
Port spokeswoman Chris Stein said that figures for 1988, the latest available, show that Host registered $21.5 million in sales at the airport, $14.2 million in concession sales and $7.3 million in food sales to the airlines. During the same period, the company paid the Port $2.6 million in rent, Stein said. The port is currently auditing Host’s 1989 sales, she added.
The union’s research staff said that Host’s 1989 concession sales increased to more than $16 million. The group was unable to gather figures for Host’s 1989 sales to the airlines.
Assistant Port Director Bill Hillman said that Host officials asked for a lease extension last year and attempted to justify the extension by offering to subcontract 18% of their Lindbergh operations to minority business people. The board turn down the request and asked Host to come back with a higher figure for minority participation, Hillman said.
The Port’s action has put Host in the difficult position of negotiating with the union, while looking for a way to please the Port on minority participation in airport businesses.
“They’re requesting a lease extension because in 1994, when Host’s contract expires, the Port will have an opportunity to solicit bids nationwide,” Hillman said. “
“Host is well aware of this. The board’s decision now is, does it accept an increase for minority participation now from Host, or wait until 1994 and solicit bids that could bring in higher minority participation?”
Although Host officials continue to bargain with the union, the talks are taking place in an air of acrimony brought on by what the union charges was a blatant attempt by the company to decertify the union.
Dan Lawrence, Host general manager at the airport, did not return a reporter’s phone calls and could not be reached for comment. But Host spokesman Sneed denied allegations that the company was behind the failed decertification attempt.
According to National Labor Relations Board records, Perry Cruz, a Host employee and union member, filed a decertification petition with the federal agency last October. Granfield said that Cruz, who works as a maintenance man and earns $14.85 an hour, was hired last May, seven months before the old labor contract expired.
Cruz became a union member in July, and three months later filed for decertification of the union. In a brief telephone interview, Cruz refused to discuss his reasons for seeking the decertification, but Sneed offered to explain Cruz’s actions.
“Let me say that we were very surprised by the decertification petition,” he said. “It’s not something we instigated or were behind. But once it was filed, of course, we had a vested interest.”
Last month, two nights before Local 30 members voted in the decertification election forced by Cruz, Host threw a company party for employees at the Marriott Hotel near Seaport Village. According to some workers who attended the party, company officials from various ethnic groups circulated among the workers, urging them to vote against the union.
Host denied that the party was an attempt to influence the vote. Sneed called it “an employee recognition dinner.”
“It’s an annual activity that we have at Host . . . It just so happens that we had the dinner during that time period,” he said. “But I’m not going to say that it wasn’t to our advantage to have it during that time period,”
Sneed said that Cruz remains a union supporter, but he disapproved of Local 30’s “inactivity on behalf of its members.”
“Perry was very active in his union in his former job. When he came to work for Marriott, he was upset about the inactivity of the union and having to pay $240 a year in dues. According to him, the union never showed up at the workplace until the decertification petition was filed,” said Sneed.
He added that the petition was signed by 66 union members and submitted to the NLRB by Cruz.
After Local 30 won a March election, where its members voted 103 to 78 to keep the union, Cruz filed several complaints with the NLRB, charging that the union unfairly influenced the outcome of the vote. NLRB officials have scheduled a hearing today to hear testimony on Cruz’s complaints.
Cruz is represented in the NLRB action by Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch, one of the most prestigious law firms in San Diego.
Local 30 officials have charged that Host is paying Cruz’s legal bills, a contention Host denied.
“Perry is doing that on his own,” said Sneed. “He’s getting absolutely no financial support from Host. We have nothing to do with it.”
Kenneth Rose, an attorney with the firm representing Cruz, declined to comment on his legal fees or who is paying them.
