L.A. Hotels, Union Returning to Table

Nine upscale Los Angeles hotels came close to locking out all their union workers Friday morning in retaliation for a wildcat strike, but later agreed to return to the bargaining table.

Talks, which have yielded little progress in three months, will resume Monday, this time mediated by Peter J. Hurtgen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the union and hotels said. Also at the table will be John Wilhelm, national president of the union, called Unite Here.

The drama underscored rising tensions in the contract battle between an ambitious hotel workers union and a powerful group of national hotel chains.

In a sign that tensions remained high, several hundred hotel workers staged a demonstration during the Friday evening commute that blocked traffic at a downtown Los Angeles intersection for about two hours. Several dozen workers and union officials were arrested.

Bargaining as the Los Angeles Hotel Employers Council, the nine hotels are the Hyatt Regency Los Angeles, Hyatt West Hollywood, Westin Century Plaza, St. Regis Hotel, Sheraton Universal, Wilshire Grand Hotel, Millennium Biltmore, Regent Beverly Wilshire and Westin Bonaventure. They employ about 2,900 union workers.

With 5,600 rooms, the hotels account for nearly 10% of the first-class lodging in Los Angeles County, said analyst Bruce Baltin of PKF Consulting.

“These are significant hotels,” said Baltin, who tracks the regional industry. “A lockout would be a very big deal.”

Adding to the tension: Contracts at highly unionized San Francisco hotels expire today, making a coordinated strike or lockout possible in both cities.

The Los Angeles contract expired June 1, with both sides adamantly far apart on the issue of contract length.

The union wants a two-year deal as part of its campaign to line up contracts across the country to expire in 2006. Union leaders say they need the clout to negotiate with the handful of national chains that now dominate the industry.

The hotels are pushing instead for a five-year pact. In June, the hotel council declared that until the union moves off of its two-year demand, negotiations are at an impasse.

Since then, each side has tried various ways to pressure the other. The hotels stopped collecting union dues, then started charging workers $10 a week for health insurance. In turn, the union has staged a series of disruptive demonstrations.

The insurance issue is what eventually led to the wildcat walkout at the Century Plaza and the St. Regis on Thursday.

Workers said when their shift started at 7:30 a.m., they asked managers to explain why some had gotten notices warning that their health insurance was about to expire. Several at the protest said they weren’t satisfied with the answers and sat on the floor, refusing to move until they got a better explanation.

Tim Loughman, general manager of both Century City hotels, said his staff asked the several dozen workers to leave twice, then told them to clock out and leave for the day. Instead, the group marched through the properties, urging other workers to join them.

By 10 a.m., more than 100 workers in uniform were marching in front of the Century Plaza.

Inside, Loughman was pulling together an emergency meeting of hotel directors, urging them to implement a mutual aid pact that calls for all nine hotels to lock out their workers if the union strikes one.

Maria Elena Durazo, president of Local 11 of Unite Here, argued that the walkout was spontaneous and not sanctioned by the union, and was over by Thursday afternoon, so should not trigger the pact.

Thursday evening, the hotel directors voted to lock out their workers as of Friday morning, according to a person who heard the conference call. But after discussions with Wilhelm, Hurtgen and others, the lockout was called off late Thursday.

As part of the detente, the union promised to cease job actions inside or in front of hotels, and the hotels said they would not lock out workers.

Still, the union went ahead with its scheduled demonstration Friday. Several hundred workers blocked an intersection near the Westin Bonaventure.

The hotel council said it didn’t consider the job action a violation of the agreement because it wasn’t staged directly in front of a hotel.