Edit: Here's Steven Greenhouse's article from Today's Times. The asbestos and retaliatory "underpayment" language stuff is intriguing. I'm wondering how the "productivity" language figures into the Heavenly Beds (or whatever the various chains are calling them) issue.LOS ANGELES, July 29 (Reuters) - Hilton Hotels Corp. (HLT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Saturday it has reached an accord with the union representing North American hotel workers that includes an easing of the company's stance on how hotels are unionized.
Hilton said it had agreed on a new labor contract covering 4,000 workers at its two major New York City hotels that matches a contract ratified last month by workers at 133 of the city's other hotels.
The Beverly Hills, California-based company announced a five-year "partnership for future growth" with the Unite Here union, which has lined up hotel contract expirations in several cities this year as it seeks to improve wages and conditions and boost its membership.
The partnership plan includes working together "on growth where it makes strategic and economic sense, including card check agreements where appropriate," Hilton said in a statement.
Unite Here has been drumming up support for the so-called card-check neutrality process, in which the union polls workers individually and a hotel is unionized if a simple majority supports it. Employers generally prefer a system that uses secret ballots.
Hilton said that about 20 percent of its U.S. employees are union members.
"We will still negotiate city by city. Card check will be a negotiating item in those cities where it is appropriate," said Hilton spokesman Marc Grossman.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
this looks good (if true)
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Yeah, it's true. They've reached an agreement with Starwood, too, which means a total of around 7,000 new members.
ReplyDeleteThe Starwood agreement isn't public yet, as far as I know.
ReplyDeleteAnd we should be clear that neither the Starwood nor the Hilton agreements guarantee even one new member. For one thing, card-check will still need to be agreed on through the negotiation process in each city. For another, just because we have card-check agreements doesn't mean the campaigns will run smoothly, and even if they do, workers still need to choose the union.
But it's definitely good news -- "where appropriate."
Thanks for clarifying. I picked this stuff up from a friend who didn't get that into specifics.
ReplyDeleteHopefully this "partnership for future growth" will not be like the SEIU's deal with with nursing homes in California where the SEIU was going to push for tort reform which would have made it harder for patients or their families from suing if there was neglect/abuse even when death was the result. It was dropped after it went public though there are now rumblings the SEIU will have to follow through on their part of the deal.
ReplyDeletepage2-3:
http://www.sfweekly.com/Issues/2006-06-28/news/smith_1.html
Also the site by site battle will be expensive especially if the hotels push the legal limits and do what Verizon & AT&T did with the CWA after card check agreements were reached.
Kstrna, you have no evidence to suggest any such clause in the terms agrred to by HERE and Hilton, so why bring SEIU into this, let alone the CWA, which has a historically fraught relationship and very different organizing model than either Unite (ILGWU/ACTWU,) HERE, or SEIU, all of which have their own differences.
ReplyDeleteI don't post union-related stuff on this blog unless it's been reported by the press or i have firsthand knowledge and am in communication with folks handling the press strategy. Got yelled at by the researchers too many times in college...
The link doesn't give direction on the matter regarding the specifics of the partnership. I raised it because until those specifics are known one must be skeptical. It encourages the partnership details to be known and for independent analysis. Public knowledge helped prevent the SEIU from going ahead with pushing tort reform on behalf of the nursing homes. I consider that to be beneficial. Now am I biased? Yes, I do not consider union/company partnerships to be a good thing in the long run, especially on the selective pressure it puts on the leadership.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Verizon and CWA, the point is a neutrality agreement doesn't meant a union can let its guard down. Companies that agree to neutrality can in practice be anything but neutral. Basically I was reiterating what Alek said but giving an example.
Some more cautious positive news for unions:
ReplyDelete"The United Auto Workers (UAW) has filed a petition with the University of California for exclusive representation of postdoctoral scholars on all ten UC campuses and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory."
SoPS
The Daily Transcript Post
I think kstrna is right to be skeptical of any joint labor-management press release, because they've historically been a mixed bag.
ReplyDeleteIn this instance, the circumstances are such that any agreement between the International Union and a hotel corporation will be limited by the negotiating situation. A few reasons: We don't have master contracts with any operator; Hotel owners play a large role in the decision-making process as well; the language is vague, and fight will lie with every city's local to solidify that language and ensure that it translates into organizing rights for non-union workers without diminishing hotel workers' voice on the job.
A certain degree of industry partnership is critical in building unions and ensuring that workers share in the benefits of industrial growth. But, like any partnership, their equality and their specific terms will determine their value for working families in and outside the affected industry.
Right, it seems to me that what is crucial to the way in which "partnership" takes shape is the presence within each shop of militant rank and file committees continually putting pressure on management, enforcing the terms of the contract, and increasing worker power on the shop floor. Without that, contracts are fairly useless. As we all learned on April 24, 2002, "partnership" is polysemous - it means different things in different contexts - along the spectrum from sweetheart contracts to taylorism to "best practices" to just short of anarchosyndicalism. The terms and meaning of the partnership articulated in Hilton's press releases are going to be determined in part by how strong the organizing is.
ReplyDelete