Hotel Workers Chart Own Future
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Drama. Thrills. Laughs. Suspense. The best show in
town is free to anyone with a union card. A UNITE HERE 25 union card. Hundreds
of UNITE HERE Local 25 members turned out last week at the latest round of
contract negotiations with local hotels. The current contracts - which cover
over 5,000 area hotel workers -- expire on September 15. Part collective
bargaining seminar, part revival meeting, the sessions are a highly unusual and
transparent exercise in union democracy, involving hundreds of rank and file
union members in the nuts and bolts of contract bargaining.
With their
necessary focus on the minutiae of language and legalistics, contract bargaining
sessions are usually the province of a handful of union leaders and lawyers, but
Local 25 has adopted a different strategy. Beginning in the 2004 round of
negotiations, facing a united front of hotel owners determined to resist worker
demands, the local embarked on a much more inclusive strategy that depended on
the active involvement of many of those very workers. Months before negotiations
began, the local organized members and involved them directly in the
negotiations, resulting in a successful contract.
This year the hotels
are negotiating separately but the union has adopted the same strategy. At last
Wednesday's session, the months of preparation had obviously paid off, as
hundreds of fired-up union members crowded into the hall at the NEA building on
16th Street. Union staff conducted a detailed briefing on the contract demands,
complete with annotated binders for each member -- in English, Spanish, Vietnamese and Amharic, as well
as simultaneous translations in multiple languages -- and Local 25 Business
Manager John Boardman outlined what his members could expect from the session
with a team of negotiators from Marriott, the area's largest employer of hotel
workers. The chant of "Contract! Contract!" swelled and intensified as the
Marriott negotiating team entered the room and made their way to the negotiating
table where Boardman and his team of members waited. "Wow," one Marriott
negotiator said to his colleagues as the wave of sound washed over them. The
hall was filled with Local 25 members, chairs had been set up in the balcony and
dozens more were waiting patiently outside to get in.
After brief
preliminaries, the negotiations began, with Boardman presenting a number of
union proposals to the Marriott team. Although the proceedings were professional
and serious, there were moments of levity, when Boardman and Marriott's chief
negotiator cracked the room up over the bingo-caller-like references to the
union's numbered proposals. Although contract negotiations can often seem
arcane, the extensive preparations obviously paid off as the room erupted in
cheers over proposals to ease the workload for more senior workers. While the
Marriott team caucused to discuss the proposals, Boardman and his staff briefed
the workers in detail on what the likely responses would be. "We're going to
have to fight for what we want," Boardman warned, "We've got a bunch of people
here to who the work and you've got to let them hear from you." As the Marriott
negotiators fled back into the room, the workers chanted "We want
relief!"
- reported by Chris Garlock