Smaller Hotels, Union Aligned
While eight prominent Los Angeles-area hotels dig in their heels in a protracted contract fight with union workers, others are quietly making labor peace.
The Hotel Bel-Air, Luxe Hotel Rodeo Drive, Sportsmen's Lodge and Radisson Wilshire Plaza have accepted the Unite Here union's demand for a 2006 contract expiration date. Several hotel managers described the pacts with Unite Here as good deals, with minimal wage increases and an agreement by the union to subsidize rising healthcare costs for two years from a trust fund reserve.
"We are definitely content with the terms of our agreement," Carlos Lopes, managing director of the five-star Hotel Bel-Air, said Wednesday. "I think it worked out for all the parties."
The contrast between those easy settlements and the tooth-and-nail fight between Unite Here Local 11 and the Los Angeles Hotel Employer's Council highlights the divergence of interests between independent and small-chain hotels and those in bigger national chains.
The council represents the latter. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc., which operates hotels under the Sheraton, Westin, St. Regis and W brands, accounts for two of eight votes on the council. Hyatt Corp., another major chain, has two more.
The union is trying to match the big chains' power by lining up contracts across the country to expire in 2006. That would open the door to coordinated job actions, even a national strike. Major hotel operators are strongly opposed to granting the union that much power.
But the independent and small-chain hotels "don't have a problem with the expiration, because they don't have a multinational corporation dictating to them what they can and cannot settle for," said Local 11 President Maria Elena Durazo.
Fred Muir, a spokesman for the hotel council, said the four hotels that settled were less likely to be targeted in a big labor confrontation. Together, they employ 570 union members, versus 2,600 at council hotels.
"The independents are just standing by and waiting for us to fight the fight," Muir said. "They know they'll largely ride our coattails ultimately."
Durazo said the union offered the same two-year deal to the council in mid-December. She said it remained on the table, along with a costlier three-year proposal the council rejected Monday.
