LaborPains.org

In October 2009, UNITE HERE hotel workers in San Francisco voted to go on strike against several hoteliers. The workers organized ostensibly because they don’t feel the hotels are doing enough for them to cover health care costs.

But the hotels aren’t the only ones supposedly depriving them of benefits. UNITE HERE was caught diverting money from a union benefit fund to spend on their strikes:

After the National Labor Relations Board brought a legal case against Unite Here Local 2, which represents 12,000 hotel employees in San Francisco and San Mateo counties, the union agreed to reverse its actions and restore the monies to the proper funds with interest, hotel spokesman Pete Hillan said in a written statement.

In May, the Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency complained about the practice to the NLRB, and the agency subsequently intervened, Hillan said. Before the union redirected the funds, the money had been going to fund child care and elder care.

“One million dollars is a lot of money to chase business away from San Francisco,” San Francisco Grand Hyatt General Manager David Nadelman said Tuesday at the first of two dueling news conferences at the Union Square Grand Hyatt.

The employees are striking primarily over a reduction in health benefits. Organized labor has reacted with outrage when states don’t fully fund their benefit funds. Alleged attempts to “raid the Social Security and Medicare funds” have also elicited dramatic responses from unions.

There can only be one solution. In order for UNITE HERE to be consistent, it has to go on strike against itself. Any business or government willing to raid its employees’ benefits for cynical purposes must be taught a lesson. That’s their talking point, right?

Image courtesy of Marshall Astor.

Last week, the labor union UNITE HERE, which represents mostly service workers, issued a demand to the Democratic Party. UNITE HERE wanted Cleveland and Charlotte, N.C., two of the sites being considered for the 2012 Democratic National Convention, ruled out because the cities didn’t have enough unionized hotels.

While the demand seems rather comical to the casual observer, this is frankly nothing out of the ordinary.

DemConWatch, an online blog,  said conventions have been won or lost based on the issue. In one posting, the blog suggested the city of Charlotte is proud not to have any union hotels, and pointed to a “Visit Charlotte” spokesperson’s push to attract the DNC, which included the fact that Charlotte has non-union hotels. …

Democrats have not officially responded, but Dr. David Swindell, director of UNC Charlotte’s Public Policy Degree Program, says they’re probably not taking this lightly.

“It’s a core constituency of the Democratic Party so of course they’re going to be interested in something like that,” Swindell says.

Labor unions spent at least $171.5 million on the 2010 elections. They were by far the Democrats’ biggest sources of money, and their money undoubtedly helped stem some of the potential electoral damage. Now Democrats owe organized labor big time.

The Democrats are considering having their convention in Charlotte because North Carolina is a swing state that voted for Obama in 2008. But it’s also a right-to-work state where collective bargaining and strikes by public employees are illegal. By asking Democrats to rule out two perfectly viable American cities for their convention, UNITE HERE is testing the waters. Will Democrats give in to the pressure of their most deep-pocketed supporters? Given what happened with the 2008 convention, we’re going with “likely.”

Last year, the UNITE HERE union, which consists mostly of service workers, reunited with the AFL-CIO. So it’s probably not surprising that UNITE HERE has been using hardball tactics that seem downright…Trumka-esque. While most unions might file a single complaint, UNITE HERE likes to shoot a little higher.

Union-represented housekeepers filed injury complaints against Hyatt Hotels Corp properties in eight U.S. cities on Tuesday, but the company said the filing was a union ploy to gain leverage and members.

The 12 filings with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration asked for an investigation into what the union, Unite Here, said were high rates of injuries among overworked housekeepers at Hyatt properties.

“Unite Here is making false charges about our work environment in hotels where we are currently trying to negotiate new union contracts,” Robb Webb, Hyatt’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement.

These complaints, timed perfectly, are an intimidation tactic to pressure Hyatt. And this is nothing new. In July, UNITE HERE led a high-profile strike against four Chicago Hyatt hotels, angry that workers were being laid off.

Then there was this amusing demand.

A union representing hotel workers has asked the Democratic National Committee to rule out two of its four convention-site finalists, Cleveland and Charlotte, N.C., because they lack sufficient unionized hotel facilities.

“Among the DNC’s four finalist cities, only St. Louis and Minneapolis” have the capacity to “house a large portion of the delegates and other guests … in unionized hotels,” John Wilhelm, president of the international UNITE HERE union of hotel and textile workers, wrote in a letter to DNC Chairman Tim Kaine.

Taking business from an economically-strapped city like Cleveland is apparently no problem for UNITE HERE. This isn’t really about the economy or hotel workers, after all. In fact, one of the hotels that UNITE HERE is picketing, the Hyatt Regency Chicago, was listed as one of the best places to work this year by Crain’s. UNITE HERE’s real goal is to attract attention to the union and stick it to successful businesses.

There have been several times when I’ve discussed the alternate means of implementing some of the key tenets of the Employee Free Choice Act, like HERE and HERE. It’s just nice to have the President blatantly confirm this agenda in his speech to the AFL-CIO.  Basic story? EFCA will be a challenge in the lame duck session, but no worries, we’ve got other ways of making it happen. From the Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Obama reiterated that the administration will put its weight behind it. “We are going to keep on fighting to pass the Employee Free Choice Act,” he told the 54 executive council members and others in the room. “We also know what and who is standing in the way of progress,” he said, adding that it will be “tough” to get the bill through the Senate and will take time to reverse the impact of “at least eight years in which there was a profound animosity toward the notion of unions.”

Mr. Obama also reminded the labor officials of the ways in which the administration has already supported unions, in part by wielding executive powers for actions that don’t require legislation.

“There’s a reason why we nominated people to the National Mediation Board that would ensure that folks in the rail and air” industries can organize, said Mr. Obama, referring to the board’s overhaul in May of a decades-old rule that had made it harder for airline and railway workers to unionize. He also cited the Democrats he nominated to the National Labor Relations Board to “restore some balance” to the group, which supervises union elections and referees disputes between private-sector employers and employees.

The SEIU and UNITE-HERE have settled up. Made peace. Cut ties.

According to the press release from the SEIU:

“The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Workers United and UNITE HERE today announced a settlement agreement on behalf of the unions’ members and elected leadership that will bring to a close the protracted dispute between the unions. [...]

The agreement provides clarity and resolution to a divisive issue in labor, and at the same time, enables each union the opportunity to increase its focus and resources on addressing the larger problems faced by members and workers who have no union.”

The equally generous statement (with a side of smarmy) John Wilhelm:

I am pleased to report we have reached a binding agreement with SEIU that brings an end to nearly two years of hostilities. I credit new SEIU President Mary Kay Henry for personally devoting her energy to making this agreement.  For the sake of workers and the labor movement, I hope that this is the first step in making SEIU the great Union it can be under her leadership. [...]

And it restores to UNITE HERE the bulk of the financial assets that have been tied up in federal court, including the Manhattan real estate. UNITE HERE and SEIU agreed to seek approval from federal regulators to transfer ownership of the Amalgamated Bank to SEIU-affiliated Workers United.

The Amalgamated Bank, which UNITE brought to the table so willingly six years ago when merging with HERE was probably the grand prize in this labor war, and the SEIU won. Some would say that acquiring it was the goal along. Just ask Bruce Raynor, who according to Mary Kay Henry was integrally involved in the negotiations.

From ABCNews:

“More than 500 decisions by the leading federal agency that referees disputes between labor and management will have to be reopened after the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the five-member board had operated illegally when its membership dwindled to two.

The high court, in a 5-4 ruling in which the court’s leading liberal — retiring Justice John Paul Stevens — sided with the court’s four most conservative members, said the law does not allow the National Labor Relations Board to operate while it is short-staffed because of political arguments. [...]

The decision means that more than 500 of employee-employer cases decided by the NLRB while its membership had dropped to two must now be reopened by the board, which currently has four members.”

Image courtesy of IslesPunkFan.

Ever since Blanche Lincoln forced Bill Halter’s rout on Tuesday, I’ve wanted to hear what newly-elected, baby-out-with-the-bathwater, SEIU President Mary Kay Henry had to say. I was not disappointed. From Politico:

“SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, who last month replaced Obama ally Andy Stern, shrugged off the suggestion that the movement lost prestige by throwing so much money at a losing candidate in such a high-profile race.

“We’d do it again in a heartbeat,” she told POLITICO. “This isn’t about the White House, and it isn’t about us. This race was about working people all around this country who’ve lost jobs or watched their paychecks shrink.” On Thursday, in another assertion of independence from the Obama-led Democratic establishment, the SEIU plans to deliver 30,000 signatures on behalf of an independent challenger to Kissell, a freshman who voted against health care reform.

Shrinking paychecks? As a reminder, not all paychecks are created equal. Perhaps that is why the SEIU has their purple eyes set on the public sector?

According to new numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “[t]otal employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $27.73 per hour worked in March 2010.  Total employer compensation costs for State and local government workers averaged $39.81 per hour worked in March 2010.”

And we wonder why state budget’s are in the red.

So you may have heard about the anti-Wall Street protests…or is it anti-K Street protests?…. that happened around Washington, DC, not New York City, today. Made up of a hodgepodge of unions, they stormed down a bank, closed a road or two (K and 14th NW), pissed off some pigeons in a park, and got generally wet in the rain. This is after they protested in front of the home of a Bank of America executive yesterday.

I decided to brave the weather–without a union branded poncho, of course– and take a few shots. There were a plethora of union colors, a giants cutout of a K Street “corporate” type which reminded me of another protest puppet, posters calling for the Consumer Financial Protection Agency to “protect small businesses”. Riiight.