“The union will definitely
be an issue this year, and there’s no point thinking you can just
move to another city.”
Laura Jelinek of the AAOMS
This year will be a
watershed one for hotel union activity, and any meeting
planner who isn’t paying attention is asleep at the wheel, say
experts. In the coming months, hotel employee contracts are set to
expire in 14 cities, including six major convention destinations.
In all, close to 300 hotels and 60,000 hotel workers will be
affected. Should negotiations sour -- as they did in San Francisco
in 2004, when 4,300 hotel employees at 14 hotels walked off their
jobs -- the effect on the meeting and convention industry could be
crippling. In that one instance, San Francisco lost $46 million in
convention business because of the retaliatory lockout by the
hotels and the volley of negative publicity that followed.
In past years, labor contracts were negotiated at the local
level, hotel by hotel, quietly and under the radar. Not any more.
In the past two years, UNITE HERE, one of four unions that last
year split from the AFL-CIO to form a new labor federation, has
employed an aggressive negotiation strategy to enhance its
collective bargaining power. And it has been hugely successful,
aligning worker contract expiration dates across the continent and
swelling its membership ranks.
In February, the union stepped up activities when it kicked off
a four-city “Hotel Workers Rising” campaign of well-publicized
rallies in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. And in
New York City, where contracts for 25,000 workers are set to expire
July 1, the situation has the potential to become particularly
ugly. In 2004, Peter Ward, president of the New York Hotel Trades
Council, a member of UNITE HERE, instituted $10 per week member
dues to seed a strike fund. That fund is expected to reach $25
million by the contract’s expiration date.
For their part, hoteliers say they are intent on running on a
business-as-usual model and have spent months crafting contingency
plans to ensure service standards in every department, from
elevator maintenance to housekeeping, are in no way compromised.
Meeting planners, say industry insiders, should be doing the
same.
“The union will definitely be an issue this year, and there’s
no point thinking you can just move to another city,” says Laura
Jelinek, associate executive director at the Rosemont, Ill.-based
American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. “Planners
need to pick up the phone and communicate with hotels about what
resources they have in place.”
Jelinek should know. In September 2004, employees at the Hilton
San Francisco, the AAOMS’ headquarters hotel and temporary home to
2,500 attendees, walked off their jobs at 5 a.m. on the first day
of the group’s annual convention. Jelinek, however, was not
blindsided.
“We had hoped for the best but prepared for the worst,” she
says. “What made our meeting a success was the daily communication
we had with the hotel and the months of preparations we made
together.”
“We told planners that if the
staff walks out, things won’t be the same, but here’s how we’ve
prepared...”
- Ian Wilson, Royal York Hotel, Toronto
How hotels prepare
At Fairmont Hotels & Resort’s Royal York Hotel in
Toronto, general manager Ian Wilson is looking forward to a quiet
year. In November 2005, the hotel came to a contract settlement
with UNITE HERE after spending three months in a potential strike
position. The uncertainty during those months, says Wilson, created
a lot of angst for meeting planners -- but it also moved Fairmont
to establish contingency procedures.
Wilson and his staff sat down with potential clients and laid
out a plan, department by department, covering the first 24 hours
and on through the first week of a possible strike. “What planners
want is no surprises. We were brutally honest with them,” says
Wilson. “We told them that if the staff walks out, things won’t be
the same, but here’s how we’ve prepared and here’s how things will
run.” Today, that plan is part of a companywide best practices
initiative being studied by other Fairmont properties.
What follows are specific steps Fairmont and other hotel
chains have taken to deal with possible labor problems.
Staffing levels. It takes months of
negotiations to get to a potential strike situation. During that
time, savvy hotels cross-train their nonunion employees in the
roles they might be expected to fill and line up outside manpower
agencies to bring in additional staff. “That is all coordinated in
advance, so we are ready to go before something even happens,” says
Matt Adams, vice president of operations for Chicago-based Hyatt
Hotels Corp.
Nevertheless, planners need to have realistic expectations,
says Sharon Myers, director of sales and marketing for the Omni San
Francisco, one of the 14 hotels swept up in the union strike. “Some
essential services, like housekeeping, will be initially disrupted,
until we ramp back up,” she notes. “We might not be able to do
turn-down service the first night or couple of days until we
adjust.”
Food and beverage. Even during a strike, a
hotel’s kitchen continues to receive food deliveries, and meals
continue to be prepared and served. What planners need to be aware
of and convey to the hotel, however, is any change in their group’s
potential F&B performance.
“The group might have union sympathizers who won’t cross a
picket line,” says John Mazzoni, vice president of national labor
relations for Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Hilton Hotels Corp. “The
planner needs to tell us that, so we can work together and come up
with realistic F&B minimums in contracts.”
In 2004, it was Mazzoni who, then vice president and managing
director of the Hilton San Francisco, guided that property through
the union strike and boycott. Most planners, he says, have
misconceptions about a hotel’s ability to operate smoothly during a
strike. “We don’t shut down restaurants or turn off the lights,” he
says. “It’s the thought of the unknown that drives people
crazy.”
Supplies. To adjust for any kind of inventory
shortfall due to vendors who might be reluctant to cross a picket
line, hotels generally stock an extra three-month cache of
operating essentials such as bathroom amenities, laundry,
maintenance and business center supplies, and nonperishable food
items.
Daily briefings. At the Fairmont Royal York,
Ian Wilson made daily briefings with on-site clients mandatory. In
some cases, they met twice -- in the morning to access the day’s
unfolding events, and in the evening to reflect and tweak any plans
for the following day. “We told planners how each day’s
negotiations were going and whether we thought a strike was
probable,” he says.
“It’s the little things you have to look at, because you might not
think about them until a walkout occurs.”
- Sharon Myers, Omni San Francisco
Outside services. “What we learned is that
bus drivers, taxis and the postal service won’t cross a picket
line,” says Laura Jelinek of the AAOMS. “They are unionized
themselves and sympathetic to the cause. The taxis would drop us a
block from the hotel.”
According to Hyatt’s Matt Adams, hotels will work with
planners to coordinate arrival and departure patterns that limit or
avoid exposure to a picket line. “We will run more airport pickups,
so we can bring attendees directly to the front door, and we will
line up nonunionized cab companies or car services to ensure
transportation is waiting, so attendees don’t have to stand outside
in front of a picket line trying to flag a ride,” he says.
Sometimes, even with the best advance planning, hotels learn in
the trenches. Sharon Myers of the Omni San Francisco says she was
sure her hotel had covered all the bases. Then she discovered FedEx
workers are unionized. “We couldn’t take the chance they wouldn’t
cross the picket line, so we went to them and said, ‘Don’t deliver
to the hotel. Hold deliveries at your office, we’ll pick them up
ourselves twice a day,’” says Myers. “It’s the little things you
have to look at, because you might not think about them until a
walkout occurs.”
What planners can
do
The key to a good contingency plan is thorough preparation and
ongoing communication. Planners should review the plan with their
staffs, keep new staff appraised and update when necessary. In
addition:
Know your group. This is the first step in
creating any contingency plan, says Jelinek. “If you have union
sympathizers, convey that situation to the hotel so room blocks and
F&B counts can be adjusted,” she advises.
Understanding the group also helps in deciding whether to allow
the hotel to reach out to attendees. “One group might appreciate
getting a letter from the hotel explaining their position on
negotiations,” says Jelinek. “But a union-sympathetic group might
not feel the same way. In fact, getting a letter from the hotel
could work against you.”
A better strategy, she suggests, is for the hotel to share its
actions with an association’s management, including the board of
directors and trustees, and let them decide what to say to
members.
Know the hotel. If a labor problem is brewing,
ask the hotel sales manager or general manager about the property’s
track record with unions, says Fairmont’s Ian Wilson. If the
history is one of bitter acrimony, it could help a planner prepare
in advance for an emergency.
Designate a point person. Negotiations between
hotel and union can drag on for months. If this is happening just
before or during the contracted event, a planner must stay abreast
of ongoing developments and designate a staff member as point
person, someone who “has to understand the logistics of the whole
meeting, because he or she will have to communicate with the hotel
and other staff members,” says Jelinek. “The staff that is already
charged with executing the meeting will be too busy doing their
regular job and will not have time.”
Know strike rules. In the event that the union
calls a strike, expect noisy picket lines and a blizzard of
leaflets. What some planners mistakenly assume, says Sharon Myers
of the Omni San Francisco, is that attendees will have to fight
their way in and out of the hotel’s lobby. “All union activity is
strictly defined by the national labor board,” says Myers. “The
striking employees have parameters around the hotel they must stay
within. They can’t impede guests from getting in and out of the
entrances.”
For a heads-up on “strike etiquette,” including rules
concerning entrance access and noise ordinances (which vary city by
city), ask hotel personnel. They likely have already been in
contact with local authorities with regard to the rules of
engagement.
Indeed, hotels can be a wealth of knowledge about union
actions. “Talk to the director of sales and/or the general
manager,” says Hilton’s John Mazzoni. “They can advise you what has
been planned, and you can tell your members.”
Ian Wilson has even encouraged planners to contact the union
itself for a different perspective on the unfolding situation. “The
union might tell them something it might not share with us, which
could be helpful,” Wilson notes.
Look for a silver lining. Holding a meeting
during a union strike can have its rewards. That’s because hotels
will go the extra mile to prove their services won’t be disrupted
and to make good on any inconvenience or slight a guest might
perceive. At the Omni San Francisco, guests enjoyed complimentary
coffee and pastries in the lobby every morning and sipped champagne
in the evenings. “It was our way of letting the guests know we
appreciated their business,” says Myers. “I tell planners, ‘Yes,
things might be a little different. But, guess what? We are going
to coddle you.’”
“If planners start following
UNITE HERE’s contract language suggestions, they will get
themselves into trouble.”
- Joseph McInerney, American Hotel & Lodging
Association
Union-smart contracts
Last December, UNITE HERE issued its “Meeting Planner
Resource Manual,” which offers specific cancellation, force majeure
and other clauses for planners to include in their hotel contracts,
along with the suggestion that, in the event of a strike, planners
insist they be walked to another comparable unionized hotel.
Joseph McInerney, president and chief executive officer of the
Washington, D.C.-based American Hotel & Lodging Association,
which has 10,000 members, cautions planners on following such
advice. “There was a lot of inaccurate information there. If
planners start following UNITE HERE’s contract language
suggestions, they will get themselves into a lot of trouble,” he
warns. “It is because meeting planners are the backbone of our
business that we issued our own manual to make sure we explained to
them the right manner and format for contracts and to set the
record straight. It was created by the very people who will be
users and have to embrace it.” (The manual, “Meeting in the Middle”
can be downloaded at www.ahla.com/labor by clicking on “brochure” under
“meeting planner resources.”)
Jelinek agrees. “It would not be proper for any association to
have UNITE HERE review their legal language and advise them,” she
says. “We are in a partnership with suppliers. You need to protect
the integrity of that partnership and of the group.”
According to hotel executives, if they are open for business
during union action, they will expect planners to honor their
contracts. “Listen, every contract comes with an attrition clause,
but we are partners in this,” says John Mazzoni of Hilton. “The
goal when you come is not for that one meeting, it is for multiple
meetings. So we need to work together honestly.”
