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Media Articles on Law Firm Hotel
Workers Striking Mark Hopkins Daily Labor Report DLR No. 201 SAN FRANCISCO - As striking workers picket the Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill, a group of 12 San Francisco hotels and two unions are planning how to spend a $100,000 Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service grant to promote labor-management cooperation and $1.8 million from health and welfare surpluses to fund employee training and education programs. About 200 Mark Hopkins workers went on strike on Oct. 6. Areas in dispute in the contract talks between the hotel and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 2 include a hotel proposal to increase workloads and eliminate certain jobs. (193 DLR A-12, 10/7/94). Twenty-eight workers covered by Service Employees International Union Local 14 already have settled with the hotel. The Mark is not part of the San Francisco Hotels multiemployer group, which has reached agreement with Local 2 and Local 14 covering more than 4,200 hotel employees. The pacts–five years for HERE and three years for SEIU–provide for joint labor-management problem-solving teams, wage and benefit increases, child care programs, and domestic partner benefits. “The Mark Hopkins situation is the antithesis of what we’re trying to do with the other hotels in San Francisco. We’re trying to change the relationship from what has traditionally been a very adversarial one between the unions and the hotels,” said Sherri Chiesa, an international organizer with Local 2, which represents 3,000 workers at the 12 hotels. Stuart Korshak, of Korshak, Kracoff, Kong & Sugano in Los Angeles representing the hotels, said the agreement with the 12 hotels and the strike at the Mark are “two starkly different models” of negotiations. Both sides think there is “a real decent chance” for some positive changes in the hotel industry due to the multiemployer group agreement, Korshak said. Looking for Success San Francisco’s hotels have been hurt by recession and earthquakes, resulting in layoffs, cutbacks, and hotels closing. “And both sides, I think, realized that if we didn’t do something pretty quick, the whole city was going to look like the Mark Hopkins,” Chiesa said Oct. 18. The hotels and unions are following the experiment of the United Auto Workers and the New United Motors Manufacturing Inc. facility in Fremont, California, a joint GM-Toyota operation, where labor and management have cooperated since the plant opened. A joint steering committee, comprised of hotel managers and union representatives or officers, will help establish committees for training programs, grievance procedures, pilot projects, problem solving, legislation, banquet issues, and other areas. The $100,000 FMCS grant will fund a director to coordinate the teams. The $1.8 million which is from a surplus in the union’s health and welfare funds and from reductions in health insurance costs will pay for an education trust fund to train workers for the changing hotel work site, said Gregory Lim, assistant to the president at SEIU Local 14. Looking to the future is the next and most difficult phase, said Lim. The way hotels serve guests is changing, and hotels are looking to cross-classification of workers. Cross-classification could end up crossing union jurisdiction, said Lim. Front desk clerks represented by the Teamsters, front doormen covered by the Operating Engineers, baggage handlers represented by Local 14, and bellmen covered by Local 2 will be affected if the hotels change the way a guest checks in, he said. TQM With A Twist Total quality management, in which worker-management teams are set up to discuss issues, may be the “rage among management,” Chiesa said, “but what’s missing from TQM is the fact that it can’t really work unless there’s a union, because that’s the only way workers will really have a say.” The unions and hotels hired facilitators to help with discussions, said Lim. Because contract talks happened at the tables, subcommittees freely discussed issues that could not be used to establish a bargaining history. Although a joint team will cover all 12 hotels–Westin St. Francis, ANA, Fairmont, Four Seasons Clift, Handlery, four Holiday Inns, Hyatt Regency, Grand Hyatt, and the Sheraton Palace–each hotel will have an individual problem-solving team. The teams will address issues and matters not specifically addressed in the contracts. The groups’ sizes will be determined by mutual agreement, and both sides will have the authority to determine their individual representatives, according to Local 2's memorandum of understanding with the hotels. Participation and service is on company time, with meetings at least once a month. Either side may raise any issues deemed appropriate, but the teams cannot be used to supplant or replace the grievance procedure. The unions retain the right to file grievances, the agreement said. The cross-classification issue at the Mark “is precisely the type of thing that we will be looking at in the problem-solving teams with the other hotels,” Chiesa said. Giving Incentive Pay A Try Local 14 is trying out incentive pay for its 1,200 members, provides a 25¢ an hour raise the first year with a $200 bonus in December. Doormen get a 75¢ an hour increase, Lim said. Between December 1994 and December 1995, 20¢ an hour will be accrued for each hour worked in an incentive pay pool. If agreement over distribution is not reached in negotiations, the funds will be distributed in December 1995 as a bonus, Lim said. The same cycle is set for December 1995 to December 1996, with a 20¢ an hour raise. Between 1996 and the contracts expiration in August 1997, he said, 25¢ an hour for each hour of work will be accruing in the incentive pool. HERE’s contract provides for raises of 10¢ an hour for a la carte servers for the first three years, 15¢ an hour in the fourth and fifth years, and bonuses of 15¢ an hour the first three years and 10¢ an hour raises and 10¢ an hour bonuses in each of the five years. All other employees receive 30¢ increases the first and second years, 35¢ the third year, and 40¢ in the fourth and fifth years. An outgrowth of the labor-management study teams is provision in both contracts for personal time off to replace sick leave policies. PTO allows more flexibility in scheduling and lets workers take time off instead of calling in sick to handle personal affairs. The change is expected to save the hotels money on replacement workers and overtime. The unions gained job security language, with the hotels agreeing not to subcontract food and beverage outlets and to provide severance pay and retraining if a property is sold and the new owner refused to hire the workforce, according to a description provided by the hotels. Members of both unions will receive improved dental and pension benefits, the hotels said. Child care programs will be created to provide limited assistance, although Lim said Local 14 did not take the elder care program included in the HERE pact. Back
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