Newport Beach : Bay Club Employees Protest Stalled Talks

Food servers, bartenders and other service workers who cater to patrons of the exclusive Balboa Bay Club are turning the spotlight on themselves this week in hopes of winning local support for stalled contract negotiations with the club’s management.

A protest Monday night at club President Thomas G. Deemer’s soon-to-be completed home on the cliffs above Newport Bay was the group’s first attempt to get public attention.

“We take these problems home with us everyday,” said James Svetz, a shop steward and waiter at the club’s restaurant. “We feel that if we have to take it home, then so does Tom Deemer.”

Negotiations broke off Tuesday. One of the main issues concerns tips earned by banquet servers. Management wants to replace the tips with a flat hourly wage of $10. Currently, banquet servers earn $4.51 an hour and split 85% of the tips collected communally, after management is given 15% of the gratuities. Workers want a three- to four-year contract with the current hourly wage and 100% of the tips.

The management proposal “sounds like a lot of money, but if you’ve ever waited tables, you know that (food servers) live off their tips,” said Angela Keefe, a spokeswoman for Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local 681.

The union represents about 120 of the club’s servers, waiters, bartenders and housekeepers. The club employs about 200 workers, some of whom are valets and groundskeepers, which the union does not represent.

A three-year contract expired in April and the employees have been working without one since. Other issues still in dispute involve seniority, grievances and union access to workers.

Bay Club officials were not available to comment on the contract talks.

Monday’s protest on King’s Road, a narrow, windy street, caught the attention of some homeowners unaccustomed to labor protests in their posh, quiet neighborhood.

Some of those neighbors were among the strongest opponents of the Bay Club’s attempt last month to win City Council approval of a $60-million expansion project. Residents said the expansion would ruin their bay and ocean views and bring unwanted traffic and congestion to their street.

The employees and club management are scheduled begin discussions with a mediator in September.