good news from local 26 in Boston

(where i worked during the fall after college. From the Boston Globe:)

The president of the Boston hotel and restaurant workers union, Janice
Loux, said she is ''cautiously optimistic" she will reach agreements with two
new luxury hotel operators in Boston that could lead to the employment of
hundreds of union workers.

''My negotiations with InterContinental are, I
think, moving forward," Loux said. ''I think things have taken a positive
turn."

Loux cautioned that she is ''still engaged in a major boycott effort"
directed at the InterContinental Boston hotel and the luxury condos, both being
built at 500 Atlantic Ave. But, she said, ''I'm encouraged. I'm cautiously
optimistic."

She declared a boycott in June, though the protest has not
affected construction of the shiny mirrored building on the Rose Fitzgerald
Kennedy Greenway.

Both the InterContinental Boston hotel, scheduled to open
next fall, and the Mandarin Oriental Boston, under construction on Boylston
Street near the Prudential Center, have followed a pattern of new hotel
developers or operators and resisted making a commitment to hire only union
workers.

An InterContinental executive confirmed that discussions between the
hotel and Unite Here, a national union that includes hotel and restaurant
workers, resumed early this month, for the first time since Oct. 12.
'

'The hotel's intention is to continue good-faith discussions with the union in early
January 2006," said Charlotte Wood, senior manager for corporate communications
for InterContinental Hotels Group, based in Atlanta.

Wood said the hotel and union have ''a better understanding of each other's interests," adding that the company is ''committed to treating its employees with dignity and respect."

The Mandarin Oriental is two years away from opening. But Loux is
insisting that workers there also be allowed to choose whether to join the union
under her terms. No one from Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, of Hong Kong, could
be reached for comment. The hotel is being developed by CWB Boylston
LLC.

Loux said she is in talks with the management of Mandarin Oriental
hotels. She again said she was ''cautiously optimistic" but said the situation
is ''not quite in as good shape as InterContinental," from the union's point of
view.

''I am the eternal optimist," Loux said.

Loux said that since she became president of the union in 1997, she has been successful in almost every case in securing at least a so-called card-check neutrality agreement. That sets up rules that allow workers to organize and hold a vote on whether they want to affiliate with her union, Boston Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, Local 26.