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