- George Raine, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, September 3, 2004

Union employees at 14 major downtown San Francisco hotels, currently engaged in difficult contract talks, said Thursday they will vote Sept. 14 on whether to authorize a strike.

The union said little progress was made in recent talks. However, the hotels noted that Peter Hurtgen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, had accepted a joint invitation from the hotels and union to join negotiations on Sept. 7 "in an attempt to mediate a solution.''

About 4,000 union employees, whose contract expired Aug. 14, are affected by the strike-authorization vote, as are the 14 hotels. If approved, it would enable the union negotiators to call a strike if they wished.

The union, formerly the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, now known as UNITE HERE, Local 2, also said members will stage the Bay Area's largest Labor Day union demonstration, on Monday at 11:30 a.m. at Union Square.

The main issue in the talks is a union effort to get a contract that has an expiration date in 2006. Similar negotiations are under way in Los Angeles, where the workers' contract expired June 1, and in Washington, D.C., where a contract expires Sept. 15.

If the unions are successful, it would put workers in the three cities in line with six other cities and the state of Hawaii, where union hotel workers already have contracts that expire in 2006.

The union believes that would improve its leverage in negotiations with corporations that have a national or international presence.

"That will give us the opportunity to have national dialogue with these corporations on issues that are so much larger than what we can do locally,'' said Mike Casey, president of Local 2 in San Francisco.

Five-year contract offered

The 14 hotel owners are represented by a negotiating group called the San Francisco Multi-Employer Group. They are offering a five-year contract, like those that were negotiated in 1994 and 1999.

"Stability is in the best interest of our hotels, our employees and San Francisco,'' said the group president, Mark Huntley, who is also regional vice president and general manager of the Fairmont in San Francisco.

"Within that context, it is also important to note that (the employers' group) is committed to reaching a fair agreement and to negotiate around the clock, if necessary, to reach that agreement,'' Huntley said.

Casey said the employers' response to the idea of a two-year pact has been "rejection every step of the way. They are fighting it.''

The 14 Class-A hotels that are involved in the talks are the Argent Hotel, Crowne Plaza Union Square, Fairmont San Francisco, Four Seasons San Francisco, Grand Hyatt, Hilton San Francisco, Holiday Inn Civic Center, Holiday Inn Express, Holiday Inn Fisherman's Wharf, Hyatt Regency San Francisco, Mark Hopkins Inter-Continental, Omni San Francisco Hotel, Sheraton Palace Hotel and Westin St. Francis. Contracts at 12 other Class A hotels in San Francisco also expired on Aug. 14, and workers there will be affected by the vote on behalf of the workers at the 14 negotiating hotels. Three other Class A hotels in the city have contracts that expire in 2006.

More expire Sept. 15

In addition, the contracts between workers and 30 other smaller San Francisco hotels and motels expire Sept. 15.

The Multi-Employer Group says its policy is that it will not discuss specific issues outside negotiations, believing it would be a disservice to the negotiations and employees.

In Los Angeles, Fred Muir, a spokesman for an employers' negotiating group called the Hotel Employers Council, representing nine hotels, said members will not agree to a two-year contract.

One reason, he said, is that the length of the contract would be too short -- 18 months at this point.

"The cost and the hassles and the uncertainties that these negotiations have created, five months in Los Angeles, we're not going to do this again in 18 months,'' said Muir. "We're not going to put our workers through this again. Traditionally, we have six-year contracts. We think they worked well for everybody.''

Muir said the hotels believe the ultimate union intent is for a national contract, which the union denies.

"We will continue to negotiate separately from city to city, but we will be able to support each of the other cities in their struggles,'' said Casey of San Francisco's Local 2.

In addition to Hawaii, the six cities in which hotel employer-employee contracts expire in 2006 are New York, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Sacramento and Monterey. There are about 55,000 union hotel workers in those six cities and Hawaii (including clusters in Seattle, Detroit and other cities), plus 8, 000 in San Francisco, 6,000 in Los Angeles and 4,000 in Washington, said Amanda Cooper, a union spokeswoman in New York.

David Koff, a research analyst for the union in Los Angeles, said the workers, as isolated units, are at a disadvantage given consolidation in the hotel industry. "Bargaining with the same hotel on behalf of 40,000 workers is clearly different than bargaining with 10,000 or 5,000,'' he said.

E-mail George Raine at graine@sfchronicle.com.