The Hotel and Gaming Trades Council – a union which represents hotel and casino employees in the New York area – is pushing a citywide regulation that would ban hotels from contracting out cleaning and administrative work. 

It’s a self-interested scheme designed to provide more dues money for the union. The result could mean pricier hotel rooms and fewer tourists willing to pay.

It’s also hypocritical. If the Hotel Council wants to stop outsourced cleaning services, it would be better off starting in its own backyard. The union and its affiliate Unite Here Local 6 have spent millions of dollars on outsourced services. 

Unite Here Local 6 is joined at the hip with the Hotel Council, sharing several executive officers. Local 6 even owns the property that the Hotel Council lists as its address through an LLC. Unite Here Local 6 has spent over $700,000 on outsourced cleaning and maintenance services over the past decade. The union even spent some $240,000 on Sterling Cleaning Services – a non-union company. 

The Hotel Council’s record isn’t much better. The organization spent over three million dollars last year on outsourced legal and consulting services.

It’d almost be funny, if these new regulations didn’t pose a risk to jobs in New York’s hospitality industry. Hotels often contract out work to help manage costs – especially during off-seasons. A ban on contracting could mean a significant increase in the cost of doing business in New York City. That means hotels could cut staff hours or jobs entirely.

It also means hotels would have to pass on the higher cost to tourists in the form of more expensive hotel rooms. Considering the city already has some of the most expensive hotel rates in the country, even a slight bump could drive tourists away from the Big Apple. 

In response to this hypocrisy, the Center for Union Facts put up a billboard in Times Square to shine a light on the Hotel Council and Local 6’s hypocrisy. You can view the full ad here.