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The Hotel Industry's Summer of 2006 CQ292810.qxd 10/4/2006 10:08 PM Page 337 © 2006 CORNELL UNIVERSITY DOI: 10.1177/0010880406292810 Volume 47, Issue 4 337-349 The Hotel Industry’s Summer of 2006 A Watershed Moment for America’s Labor Unions? by DAVID SHERWYN, ZEV EIGEN, and PAUL WAGNER Neutrality agreements allow labor unions to organize ach May for the past five years, employment workers in hotels and other industries without the lawyers representing hotels and other hospital- trouble of a secret-ballot election. UNITE HERE, E ity companies attend the Center for Hospitality which represents hotel employees in several major Research’s (CHR’s) annual Labor and Employment markets, attempted in summer 2006 to extend its Law Roundtable. The Legal Roundtable, jointly spon- reach into the industry via neutrality agreements. The sored by the CHR, Cornell University’s School of union contracts expired in several markets, which Industrial and Labor Relations, and Cornell Law meant that the hotel chains were faced with the pos- sibility of labor strife in their major cities. In exchange School, is held each year at Cornell’s School of Hotel for labor peace, the chains agreed to a moderate Administration. In both 2005 and 2006, one of the extension of organizing by neutrality agreement, but Legal Roundtable’s topics was union negotiations in the not to the extent that the union might have wished. hotel industry. As the reader may be aware, the union negotiations in summer 2006 were among the most Keywords: neutrality; card check; elections; important negotiations in recent memory. The purpose unions; labor peace; negotiations of this article is to explain, by drawing in part on insights of Roundtable participants, how the summer of NOVEMBER 2006 Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly 337 CQ292810.qxd 10/4/2006 10:08 PM Page 338 CHR LEGAL ROUNDTABLE THE HOTEL INDUSTRY’S SUMMER OF 2006 2006 was set up to be a watershed time careers. Since union dues are composed of for the union movement, what the issues a percentage of employee pay (excluding were, and how the union sought to exert its tips) and because union members who power. benefit the most are those who stay at the same job for long periods of time, hotel The State of the Labor jobs did not fit the traditional union model. Instead, the union movement focused on Movement and the Merger “heavy labor.”4 of UNITE HERE With the days of American dominance Once strong, union membership is in in manufacturing long gone, unions turned decline in the United States. In the years to industries that cannot be relocated or following World War II, the economy outsourced overseas. Today, the hospitality boomed and the labor movement attained industry is now not only a focus but could its peak of national power. Unions orga- be the holy grail for the labor movement. nized more than half of the workforce in That said, the labor movement faced a prob- manufacturing.1 At its height in the mid- lem of adequate resources in its prospec- 1950s, organized labor represented about tive plan to organize hotel employees. 35 percent of the United States’s work- One of the chief hotel unions, Hotel force.2 That percentage has declined steadily Employees and Restaurant Employees since that time, sinking to 13.7 percent in (HERE), had a core membership in the 2005. Indeed, only 7.8 percent of the private hotel industry. Moreover, the union had a workforce is now unionized; the approxi- capable, dynamic, and progressive leader, mate level just before the New Deal.3 A John Wilhelm. But HERE lacked suffi- large reason for the decline in private sec- cient monetary resources. Meanwhile, tor union membership is the decline of UNITE, the successor union of the heavy manufacturing in the United States. International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ As these industries moved out of the coun- Union (ILGWU) and the Amalgamated try, union jobs simply disappeared (and Clothing and Textile Workers Union many others moved out of the country). (ACTWU), also had a bright, dynamic One industry that has not disappeared leader, Bruce Raynor. In addition, because or relocated, however, is the hotel indus- it owned the Amalgamated Bank of New try. During the height of union organizing York, it had substantial resources. The just before and after World War II, most of problem for UNITE was declining mem- the great hotels in large American cities bership as U.S.-based apparel and textile were organized. Even though many of manufacturing continued to decline. these hotels have changed ownership and On July 8, 2004, UNITE and HERE operators, there remains a strong union pres- merged to create UNITE HERE, with the ence in such cities as Boston, Chicago, following goal: “Organizing the unorga- Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, nized in our industries is the top priority and Washington, D.C. Despite this pres- for UNITE HERE. Over 50 percent of ence, hotels were not the focus of labor the new union’s national budget will go organizers for many years. This was the toward organizing.”5 UNITE HERE does case because hotel employees are typically not, however, wish to organize in what not highly paid, often work for tips, and one might consider the old-fashioned way, are mobile—failing to stay in bargaining- which was through elections monitored unit positions for the duration of their by the National Labor Relations Board 338 Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly NOVEMBER 2006 CQ292810.qxd 10/4/2006 10:08 PM Page 339 THE HOTEL INDUSTRY’S SUMMER OF 2006 CHR LEGAL ROUNDTABLE (NLRB). Instead, the union wishes to do in the service sector what we did in increase its membership via far less costly manufacturing 70 years ago: transform neutrality agreements and card checks. To low-wage work into decent jobs that give understand the distinction, both types of people the opportunity to make it into the union organizing are explained below. middle class.” As we said, these unions seek to accomplish this goal via nontradi- “Unite to Win” Organizing tional organizing methods, using card Strategy checks and neutrality agreements, which we UNITE HERE is one of a group of describe below. Indeed, at a recent Change national labor organizations that are to Win convention held in Las Vegas, engaging in a novel attempt to shift strate- attended by more than two thousand union gic gears, in particular with respect to organizers, the organization announced an organizing. In addition to UNITE HERE, organizing campaign in thirty-five cities. those unions are the Service Employees Operating under the slogan “Make Work International Union (SEIU), the Inter- Pay,” the drive aims to form cooperative national Brotherhood of Teamsters, the cross-union efforts to organize workers in Carpenters, the United Farm Workers, the target cities. One of the primary com- the Laborers International Union, and the ponents of the Make Work Pay campaign United Food and Commercial Workers is a national campaign led by UNITE (UFCW). As stated on the Change to Win HERE to organize workers at a large U.S. Web site, which is the seven unions’ col- hotel chain, including distributing leaflets lective electronic effort, the central objec- at the company’s hotels and sponsoring tive of Change to Win is “to unite the more rallies in many cities. than 50 million American workers who work in industries that cannot be out- Traditional Organizing Drives sourced or shipped overseas into strong The “old-fashioned” method of orga- unions that can win them a place in the nizing aims at building support for a ballot American middle class—where their jobs among employees at a particular establish- provide good wages, good health care, ment or company. Sometimes, unions send good pensions, and a voice on the job.”6 their members to apply for jobs with non- The goal is for the Change to Win unions union employers the unions wish to orga- to integrate their organizing programs and nize. Once hired, these “Trojan horse” to launch large-scale organizing cam- workers set about organizing the other paigns, earmarking at least 50 percent of employees. This method, referred to as collective resources for organizing drives “salting,” has been the subject of a U.S. across the country (Unite to Win is UNITE Supreme Court case in which the Court HERE’s name for its part in Change to held that an employer could not terminate Win). Part of the organizing strategy a “salter” simply because the real reason involves labor coalition building with the the employee joined the company was to intent of bypassing traditional organizing organize it.7 Another traditional method drives in favor of applying political and for organizing is to find existing employ- economic pressure on employers to orga- ees who are willing to “sell” the union to nize employees. As John Wilhelm explains their coworkers. Last, organizers may enter on the Change to Win Web site, “What the property and hand out authorization workers in this industry need, what the cards or set up picket lines at the prop- country needs is a permanent campaign to erty’s entrances and exits. NOVEMBER 2006 Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly 339 CQ292810.qxd 10/4/2006 10:08 PM Page 340 CHR LEGAL ROUNDTABLE THE HOTEL INDUSTRY’S SUMMER OF 2006 The National Labor Relations Act to convince employees to vote against the (NLRA) sets forth the laws regulating this union by raising issues with the lawful form of employee organization.8 Under intent of informing employees of their those rules, before any labor organization rights and the consequences of voting in can be certified as the exclusive bargaining favor of the union.11 According to several representative for any group of employees, Roundtable labor lawyers, one of the key the employees in that group, constituted as strategies in this regard is to examine what a bargaining unit, vote for or against union the union is selling and explain to the representation in a secret ballot election employees the ways in which the costs monitored by the NLRB.
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