Ongoing Hotel Strike Drives Away Meeting
By Margo McCall -- Tradeshow Week, 11/8/2004
San Francisco's unionized hotels didn't listen to the mayor, so it's not surprising that they didn't heed the wishes of the American Anthropological Assn. either.
The 14 downtown hotels, organized as the San Francisco Multi-Employer Group, turned down Mayor Gavin Newsom's proposal for a 90-day cooling off period in the month-long strike of 4,000 members of Unite Here Local 2. Newsom had threatened to pull city business from the unionized hotels, as well as picket with the striking hotel workers, if the proposal was turned down.
The anthropology group planned to hold its annual meeting as scheduled Nov. 17–21 at the unionized San Francisco Hilton as long as hotel management agreed to the cooling-off period. Otherwise, the group would take the meeting and its 5,000 attendees to Atlanta, where space was booked for a Dec. 15–19 meeting.
When hotel management turned down the proposal, the association board voted to pull its business from San Francisco. "We deeply regret that management did not agree to end the lockout," association President Elizabeth Brumfiel said in a letter to members.
As the strike drags into its second month, the anthropological association pullout marks the first big piece of business that San Francisco has lost due to the labor dispute. The dispute spread from a two-week strike at four of the hotels when all 14 of the hotels locked out the unionized workers and brought in nonunion replacements.
Since the strike's start in late September, a number of tradeshows and conventions have been held in the city, including CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment, the Mortgage Bankers Assn. of America 91st Annual Convention & Expo and several medical meetings. Complaints from organizers have centered mainly on noisy picketers and delayed or nonexistent room service.
CTIA spokeswoman Erin McGee said the strike didn't generate a single complaint during her association's Oct. 25–27 show at Moscone Center. "The exhibit floor was sold out. Attendance was up from prior years. We really saw no impact on our show due to the strike," she said.
Mark Theis, vice president, convention division, for the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, said he tried to find other accommodations for the anthropology group, but had difficulty, since the city is in the throes of a busy convention season.
"Clearly we tried to work with them on an alternative venue or package, but we didn't have any availability. Obviously, we're disappointed they felt the need to relocate. In the end, we exhausted all other options and have to respect the direction of their board," Theis said, adding that the group will likely return to San Francisco in 2006.
Hilton spokeswoman Debbie Larkin said the association was holding "major space," but came to an arrangement to hold the meeting at the Hilton in Atlanta. "I think everybody was trying to bend over backwards," she said.
The association was the first group to oppose the idea of holding a meeting at the Hilton during a strike situation. "This is one group that felt they couldn't for philosophical reasons," she said, adding that the sales force has been keeping in close contact with clients to keep them appraised.
The group's board approved $50,000 to help defray the additional costs that participating graduate students and some foreign scholars will incur as a result of the new meeting venue.
Unite Here hotel workers have also authorized strikes in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. In addition, about 10,000 casino workers in Atlantic City are currently on strike. Although wages and health benefits are at issue, the biggest sticking point is the contract's length.
Hotel management in those cities is pushing for traditional five-year contracts. Unite Here is fighting for contracts that would expire in two years — at the same time as hotel worker contracts expire in six other cities. While the union argues that the action is necessary to help them compete with national hotel chains, hotel management remains strongly opposed to that approach.
"The union's national labor agenda is to link our contract here in San Francisco with contracts in other cities in 2006. This strategy will be devastating to the hotel industry and devastating to San Francisco," Matthew Adams, vice president of the hotel management group, said in a statement.
While Theis said meeting planners aren't extremely concerned about the current labor dispute, viewing it more as an inconvenience than anything, he fears what would happen in 2006 if the shorter extension is approved. "The consequences of having a two-year contract would be devastating," he said.
Meanwhile, members of Unite Here Local 11 were considering whether to call for an official boycott of Los Angeles' nine unionized hotels.
In Los Angeles, as in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., the union leadership had been contacting meeting planners and conference and exhibition organizers to alert them to the brewing dispute. In San Francisco, some organizers took exception to the approach, saying they felt they were being strong-armed.
Lynn Lawson, a spokeswoman for the Hotel Assn. of Washington, D.C., said reports of lost business in that area have been limited to a 900-member group of union representatives from New York.
"There may have been a few banquets here and there, but the general managers have been reporting that it's business as usual," she said.
In Washington, D.C., unlike in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the two sides have returned to the bargaining table. No significant progress was reported, however.
In San Francisco, after rejecting the cooling-off period, hotel management extended an olive branch in the form of a more favorable health insurance deal. But as of press time, they hadn't budged on the issue of contract length.
