A More Perfect Union?

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More than a marriage of convenience, the merger of the unions representing needletrades and hotel workers was a marriage of opportunity.


The union, now known as Unite HERE, has 440,000 members nationwide and assets of more than $197 million. It’s the kind of base its leaders argue gives it the strength to deal with the contract mess that was HERE’s dowry.


“I certainly think the way things are headed now that the use of a strike is more likely,” said Maria Elena Durazo, president of the union’s Los Angeles Local 11. “Economically, we could withstand a long-term strike.”


Whether the will is there is another question.


Roughly 2,800 housekeepers, bellmen, cooks, banquet staff and other workers have been working without a contract for six months. They are trying to push their employers, members of the Los Angeles Hotel Employers Council, into concessions that will give them a two-year contract, along with continued employer-paid health insurance and an unspecified pay raise.


On July 1, the workers overwhelmingly voted to reject what was billed as the council’s “best and final” offer. Talks between the parties broke down Sept. 2, and two weeks later the rank-and-file voted to authorize a strike. The last several months have been marked by walkouts, lockouts and protests. The Wilshire Grand locked out its unionized laundry workers shortly after the strike vote was taken.


Yet despite the support of its membership, now made up of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees and the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, union leaders have not pulled the trigger on an action they say would be “devastating to the industry.”


“It’s a testament to how long the workers are willing to (wait) for whatever the issue is that’s important to them,” said Durazo. “As president of the union, I would look to sustain this for however long it takes.”



Patience a virtue?


There is precedent for patience. In the mid- to late 1990s, 350 food service workers at USC represented by HERE went five years without a contract, staging two strikes of a month or less during that time, Durazo said.


In the late 1980s, about 500 workers at what were then three Hyatt Corp. hotels went three years without a contract. There were no job actions during that span.


But circumstances are different now, said Daniel Mitchell, a UCLA professor of management and public policy.


For one, the union has a strong incentive to hold out for a contract it can coordinate with locals in San Francisco and Washington, D.C. If it can achieve that, it would be on the same negotiating timetable with locals in Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, New York and Toronto.


(On Oct. 1, the operators of 14 San Francisco hotels locked out more than 4,000 workers after employees at four of those hotels started what was to be a two-week strike.)


Local 11 is also mindful of the significant losses incurred by the United Food and Commercial Workers in Southern California as a result of the strike and lockout that lasted 141 days earlier this year.


“Unite HERE saw that ultimately the grocery workers had to settle for disadvantageous terms because of their disunity,” said Mitchell. “The cost of the hotel strike is a business loss to the workers. If they can let San Francisco be the battleground, both sides come out better here in Los Angeles.”

So far, Local 11 has been content to flex its muscle in other ways with raucous demonstrations outside hotels and by trying to persuade hotel customers to cancel banquets and other events. That does not appear to have made much of an impact on the hotel council, whose representatives insist that a strike could be easily handled.


“(The merger) certainly hasn’t affected our decisions in any way,” said Lisa Van Krieken, a partner in San Francisco-based Folger Levin & Kahn, one of the lead negotiators for the hotels. “We are still making our decisions on practical business reasons and hotel operations. We are obviously prepared to operate if there is a strike.”


And while she expressed confidence about the union’s prospects in a strike, Durazo still hedged.


“We don’t want a strike to drag on for any length of time,” she said. “We know that (if and) when a strike is called, it will be devastating to the industry. Our unions and our members have a vested interest in the Los Angeles community.”


At the time of the merger, HERE was struggling to become a major national player. For Unite, joining with HERE was a way to shore up membership losses, particularly in L.A., where over the last two decades unionized apparel and textile operations have all but disappeared.


In addition to riding the trend of consolidation to add strength to their numbers, Unite and HERE also shared the common denominator of representing mostly low-wage workers who are immigrants, minorities and/or women.


“They are the most vulnerable members of the workforce,” said Amanda Cooper, spokeswoman for the union’s international office, which also represents workers in Canada and Puerto Rico.


In the long-term, Unite HERE plans to follow the lead of the Service Employees International Union by focusing more of its attention and resources on organizing non-union hotels, apparel makers and other shops under its labor umbrella.


While the international offices have officially merged, the regional and local branches will not geographically intertwine until the labor dispute is settle. To spread the power and wealth, Unite President Bruce Raynor was appointed general president of the combined organization, while HERE President John Wilhelm was given the title of president of the union’s hospitality division.

Locally, Durazo came to head the operation in large part because Unite’s locals were not well-coordinated. She is also backed by her husband, Miguel Contreras, executive director of the Los Angeles County Federal of Labor.

“The people who are going to call the shots in L.A. are the people who were here before the merger,” said Mitchell.


It was under their leadership that the Fairmont Miramar, Viceroy, Four Points by Sheraton, Loews hotels in Santa Monica were unionized in recent years.

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