San Francisco Loses Another Annual Meeting
Staff -- Tradeshow Week, 7/25/2005
An employee benefits association is moving its annual conference from San Francisco, and four other groups are considering doing likewise as negotiations between 14 downtown hotels and more than 4,000 unionized workers remain stalled.
The Intl. Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans will hold its conference, which attracts up to 12,000 people, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas Oct. 8–11, 2006, instead of at San Francisco's Moscone Center, drawing on some of the affected hotels to house attendees.
"That was a factor," organization spokeswoman Stacy Van Alstyne said of the labor dispute. "There would have been some attendees who would have been uncomfortable."
The group will hold its 2007 meeting in Anaheim, but didn't rule out returning to San Francisco in years to come.
The American Anthropological Assn., American Educational Research Assn., American Federation of Teachers and American Political Science Assn. were also considering relocating their 2006 meetings elsewhere in light of the nearly yearlong dispute between Unite Here and the San Francisco Multi-Employer Group, which represents hotel management.
In a campaign decried by some meeting planners, Unite Here has been urging groups to boycott the affected hotels.
The anthropological group previously relocated its 2004 meeting to Atlanta because of the labor strife, and the Organization of American Historians moved its 2004 meeting to nearby San Jose, Calif.
Meanwhile, negotiations in mid-July failed to end the stalemate after the union rejected a proposal for a contract ending in March 2007. The two sides are set to return to the table Aug. 10, a spokesman for hotel management said.
Unite Here has been trying to line up 2006 contract expirations in as many cities as possible to give the union greater leverage in negotiating with national hotel chains. Among the cities where hotel contracts will expire next year are Boston, Chicago, Honolulu, Los Angeles, New York, Toronto, and Monterey and Sacramento, Calif.
