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Hotels: San Francisco Hotels, HERE Reach
Tentative Accord On Five-Year Contract

Daily Labor Report
Sept. 20, 1999

SAN FRANCISCO – Some 8,000 workers at 11 San Francisco hotels would receive an average 21 percent raise under proposed new five-year agreement between the multi-employer group and Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 2, both sides announced Sept. 17.

Stuart Korshak, the Los Angeles attorney who was chief negotiator for the San Francisco Multi-Employer Group, told reporters that the tentative contract, scheduled for ratification by union member Sept. 23, would give the hotels "five more years of labor peace."

The agreement also would give members a retirement window "so that workers who retire over the course of the next five years will receive the increased benefits," Korshak told BNA. For a worker with 20 years of service, the increase would boost retirement benefits from an average of $300 a month to $600, Casey said.

The pension increase would not apply to people who already are retired or to those who retire after five years, Korshak said. The agreement allows a bubble of older workers to retire if they wish. "It’s not a permanent increase. It has to be renegotiated in the next contract," Casey said.

The agreement would produce an average pay increase of 4.25 percent in each year, with individual employee’s raises ranging from 3 percent to 5 percent and the greatest increases for lower-paid classifications, Casey said.

Local 2 and the Multi-Employer Group in 1994 reached an agreement that provided child care and elder care and created a $2 million joint labor-management partnership that sought federal and state training grants. The new agreement , which is retroactive to Aug. 14, would continue the programs and commit another $1 million to training, Casey said.

Maintains Benefits.

The agreement also would maintain existing health and welfare benefits and add a vision plan; establish committees to look at new ways to make hotel restaurants successful; includes successor language; reduces room cleaners’ work load; and initiatives a new joint cooperative program to improve functioning of the hiring hall.

The tentative contract also creates joint study teams to look at reorganizing work in hotels to increase productivity in the changing marketplace, Korshak said.

The 11 hotels covered by the tentative agreement are the San Francisco Hilton, the Argent, Fairmont, Hyatt Regency, Grand Hyatt, Sheraton-Palace, the Crowne Plaza Union Square, Holiday Inns at the Civic Center, Financial District, and the Fisherman’s Wharf, and the Westin St. Francis.

Three other hotels have "me-too" agreements, including the Mark Hopkins where Local 2 struck in 1994 after reaching agreement with the multi-employer group, Casey said. Local 2 hopes to use the agreement as a pattern for the 12 other Class A hotels in the city with which it has agreements.

Voting will take place in four shifts Sept. 23, Casey said.

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