San Francisco Hotel News & Labor Updates

San Francisco Sentinel February 14, 2011 http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=108658 Local 2 Unite Here shop stewards have been demanding that union members remove anti-Mike Casey buttons at hotels around San Francisco in a continuing sign that Casey’s leadership of the 9,000 member union is faltering under pressure from rank and file members. After more than 2 years of failing to negotiate a contract with hotels in San Francisco, Casey is starting to feel the pressure from members tired of walking picket lines and participating in unsuccessful sporadic protests at San Francisco hotels. Adding to the pressure on Casey is the Unfair Labor Practice finding that was successfully brought against the union at the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB forced Unite Here Local 2 leadership to reverse their own illegal diversion of trust fund monies back into the proper fund. The facts of the case are: • Last year, Local 2 leadership made a unilateral decision to divert employer contributions from one employee trust fund – covering health and welfare – to a second trust fund for legal matters. • This diversion was contrary to the terms in the collective bargaining agreement and took place without the required bargaining with Hyatt. • The National Labor Relations Board brought a case against Local 2 for illegally diverting these monies. • On Jan. 18, 2011, Local 2 agreed to settle these charges, reversing its action and restoring the monies to the proper funds with interest. Local 2 is smarting from the adverse NLRB judgment and has even threatened to sue The Sentinel for publishing a story about the charges in our Jan. 27 edition. Here is the full text of the Local 2 letter from Local 2 research director Ian Lewis that threatens this publication with libel: “I write to demand that your organization, Friends of the Sentinel, remove from its website and publish a retraction of the article posted in January 2011 – attached hereto – which falsely accuses UNITE HERE Local 2 of illegally diverting $1 million dollars from an employee benefits trust to fund strike action against San Francisco hotels. “You have never had any good faith factual basis for accusing Local 2 of stealing from its employee benefit trust. The NLRB charge referred to in your article contained no such accusation. The sole source of your information is an article published in the San Francisco Examiner weeks ago. However, the story was retracted and corrected when the Union alerted the Examiner that its reporting was mistaken. Despite knowledge of the true facts, you have maliciously and intentionally continued to republish the false charges to the Union’s detriment. “Please confirm in writing that the libelous material has been removed from your website and replaced with a retraction no later than February 14, 2011. Local 2 will not hesitate to exercise its legal remedies should you refuse to do so.” The Sentinel story never accused Local 2 of stealing funds, as claimed by Mr. Lewis, but it reported on the NLRB finding that the union had committed an unfair labor practice and, separately, noted that union members were questioning the use of $1 million from a separate union strike fund to ramp up activities against San Francisco hotels. In fairness, we added a clarification to our original story, to ensure clarity. We want to note that the reporting of this story was not libelous, nor did, as Mr. Lewis claims, the Examiner retract its original story either. The Examiner did issue a correction similar to the clarification The Sentinel posted on its original reporting. Clearly, Local 2 is feeling pressure from its rank and file members who are now openly questioning the leadership of the union (and wearing Anti-Mike Casey buttons). It may be a new day in San Francisco labor relations if Casey and the leadership of Local 2 are being challenged by their own members. Here is the text of the original story published on Jan. 27 about the issue with the clarification at the bottom: This is year is off to a rocky start for Local 2 Unite Here and its leader Mike Casey. First, the union was forced by the federal government to replace money it had illegally taken from employee trust funds after it was cited for Unfair Labor Practices. Now other hotels are considering filing Unfair Labor Practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board on the same money transfer issue. But the even bigger story is that Mike Casey may be losing his grip on his members. This week hotel employees who heard about the misuse of funds by Casey and Local 2 leaders started wearing buttons that said “Mike Casey’s Union NO!!! Union Yes.” Local 2 union leaders demanded that members remove the anti-Casey buttons. Word in the hallways of some of the largest hotels in San Francisco is that employees are tired of Casey’s demonstrations and boycotts and want a settlement with hotel management. Hotel union membership has dropped from 13,000 to 9,000, a 30 percent drop over the past three years. While the economy played a big role in job losses, many Local 2 members hold Casey’s boycott and labor actions responsible for their own economic hardship and loss of jobs. The union’s contract with San Francisco hotels expired in August 2009. Since that time, Casey has made no progress with San Francisco hotels while other UNITE HERE locals have settled in Vancouver and elsewhere. San Francisco members may also be rising up against Casey’s $1 million raid of their funds for boycott and other economic strikes against S.F. hotels because they see how Local 2’s actions have hurt their own pocketbooks. The pressure is on for Casey to make a deal that protects members current salaries and benefits. Local members tell us they “are tired of being pawns” in a national UNITE HERE campaign to unionize hotels outside of San Francisco. Many are fearful for their jobs in light of the unstable economy and Casey’s unsuccessful negotiations. Clarification: Although Unite Here Local 2 agreed to reinstate some funds that it had transferred from a benefit fund into a legal defense fund, that money was separate from the strike fund the union has been using to wage its boycott campaign against San Francisco hotels. Updated Feb. 14, 2011. [...]