Hotel workers plan to appeal the decision
Charges of misconduct levied last year against the local hotel and restaurant union by workers in a Santa Monica hotel have been dismissed, officials said Wednesday.
Officials from the National Labor Relations Board, a national agency that polices labor law, didn’t find enough evidence to pursue either the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees or the Four Points Sheraton on Pico Boulevard. Both were accused of illegally forcing workers to unionize.
Lawyers for the workers said they plan to appeal the decision. Labor organizers applauded the ruling and said the charges were orchestrated by a conservative group that represents big business.
“From the onset, we said these charges are outrageous — and I think this sends a clear message that we were right,” said Kurt Petersen, HERE’s organizing director. “In my nine years working, we’ve never had any charges filed against us. But it’s not unusual for the National Right to Work Foundation. They are a fringe, right-wing group — and this is what they try to do, they try to harm workers.”
Justin Hakes, a director at the Virginia-based nonprofit foundation, said his group will appeal the ruling and is confident they will prevail because of the “egregious nature of the abuses.” The workers have accused HERE and hotel managers of coercing them into voting for the union through bribery and intimidation.
But James McDermott, a regional director for the NLRB, wrote in a Feb. 27 ruling that the workers provided only vague evidence in support of their charges, adding some of the charges came after the associated statute of limitations had expired, which meant they weren’t considered.
“We move on. We want to go forward, not backward.” — — KURT PETERSEN Organizing director, HERE Local 11
Many of Santa Monica’s large hotels are not unionized, including Shutters on the Beach, Le Merigot and Casa Del Mar.
Four Points last year became the most recent Santa Monica hotel with a union presence. It joined the Fairmont Miramar Hotel and the Viceroy, which are both already unionized, and Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, where union officials are conducting a “card-check election.”
It’s that type of election that Hakes’ group takes issues with. He claims a card-check election is not an election at all, but rather a “top-down unionizing drive,” because, once agreed upon with managers, it gives union officials an extended period of time to gather signatures from workers. The process is unfair, Hakes argues, because it allows union organizers to coerce workers one by one. And once managers agree to let union officials conduct a card-check election, unionization always follows, he said.
339,“If the HERE union did enjoy a true majority of support of the workers, they could have simply agreed to the traditional, government-supervised secret ballot election, as is the norm,” Hakes said.
Petersen countered that the process was followed according to law. He said the workers agreed to unionize because of the benefits associated with it — like paid lunch hours, increased salaries and reduced workload.
“I mean look, we’ve had a majority in that place for well over a year,” said Petersen, whose group has since turned its efforts towards the non-unionized Doubletree on Fourth Street. “And the law says that employers can recognize the unions with a majority on cards...
“We move on,” he added. “We want to go forward, not backward. That’s the point here.”
Kurt Petersen
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 4, 2004. Read the original PDF.