Boston Globe, June 4, 2006, Sunday

Boston Globe

Battle between hotel, union enters rare labor relations territory
By Stephen Singer, AP Business Writer June 4, 2006
http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/articles/2006/06/04/battle_between_hotel_union_enters_rare_labor_relations_territory/

HARTFORD, Conn. --A union's effort to represent employees of a Hartford hotel is turning traditional labor roles upside down -- the company is demanding a union election and the union says it doesn't want one.
The Waterford Group, which has an ownership stake in the Marriott Hotel at Adriaen's Landing, took the unusual step of asking the National Labor Relations Board to schedule an election so its 240 employees can decide if they want to be represented by UNITE HERE, a national hotel workers union. Such requests are almost always made by unions and staunchly resisted by businesses.
The union, meanwhile, is pressuring the Marriott to sign what it calls a "labor peace agreement" to avoid litigation and smooth the way for an organizing campaign.
"As unions are now looking for a means outside the NLRB processes to represent employees, now we have unions using novel tactics involving political and social pressure to try to have employees represented by them," said John Cotter, assistant regional director for the labor board in Hartford. "As unions use new tactics, it's not too surprising that employers use novel arguments to bring the board into the procedure."
Requests by companies for a union election comprised less than 2 percent of the more than 2,600 board-supervised elections in 2005.
The federal labor board's Hartford office rejected Marriott's request, in part because the union denied it was trying to organize employees. The hotel is appealing to the board's Washington headquarters.
While legal, labor peace agreements are "outside our processes," Cotter said.
Unions have been increasingly successful in winning elections, gaining the support of workers in more than 60 percent of elections last year, up from about 47 percent in 1996, according to the labor board. But the number of workers eligible to join unions following elections has declined, to 70,510 from a high of 107,359 in 2000.
In response, unions are seeking to organize workplaces with larger numbers of employees and using community and investor pressure to force employers to accept neutrality agreements and stand aside for organizing drives, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, a one-time union organizer who is director of labor education research at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
"Unions are now asking for them, fighting for them," she said. "It's not a surprising development because what unions know is that absent those agreements and community support, companies wage war."
Antony Dugdale, a senior research analyst at UNITE HERE in New Haven, said labor peace agreements provide long-term success for both sides. "If there's no agreement up front as to what the process is, you end up with a lot of litigation or confrontation. I don't think that's good for anybody," he said.
Joe McInerny, president and chief executive of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, said the tactic is common in large cities such as New York and Boston.
"It is the No. 1 issue UNITE HERE has in growing their organization," he said. "We're opposed to unions holding hostage existing union members to get a card check neutrality."
Len Wolman, chief executive of the Waterford Group, said the workers -- not a union -- should decide if they want collective bargaining.
"It's not our choice, it's not the union's choice. It's up to the workers," he said.
Unionized workers from outside the Marriott occasionally picket the Hartford Marriott and organizers have met with some hotel employees. A union organizing drive has not begun.
A couple of workers at the hotel, which has been open less than a year, know only vaguely that a union wants them to join.
"I don't know more," said Juan Diaz of Windsor, who has worked in housekeeping for two months.
Marriott is also feeling pressure from city government. An ordinance requires businesses receiving a benefit from the city to sign a labor peace agreement, although company officials say the law applies only to development projects, not the operations of a business. The city, which provided the hotel with property tax breaks, has asked a Superior Court for an interpretation of the law.
Jay Krupin, a Washington, D.C., lawyer who represents the hotel, said politics have overrun federal labor law in UNITE HERE's unionizing drive.
"What's happened here is the union has said previously we want to organize workers, we're going to put pressure on the hotel, we'll put political pressure on the hotel, to put economic stress on you so you will permit us to represent your employees without you taking any position," he said. "It's contrary to the National Labor Relations Act. The NLRA says there should be an election."
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