Less than one month after the union was allowed into a Santa Monica hotel, the majority of workers there have agreed to organize, officials said Tuesday.
Employees at the Four Points Sheraton, located at 530 Pico Blvd., have signed in favor of a union. The signatures were counted late last month by a neutral, third-party arbitrator.
“The mood over there is people are excited,” said Kurt Petersen, the organizing director for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 11. “Who wouldn’t be? They’re getting all this free stuff.”
Union officials will sit down with hotel managers in the next few weeks and hammer out a contract, a process which can take weeks. Once the contract has been written, it will go before employees to be ratified.
“We’re happy because we need more pay, more respect. We need our union,” said Maria Mena, a housekeeper at the Sheraton for the past 18 years. Mena, who doesn’t speak English, said through a translator that she supports the union because organizers have promised to raise her salary while reducing her workload. Currently, Mena said she makes $9.26 an hour and cleans 16 rooms a day.
The Sheraton is about to be the third unionized hotel in Santa Monica. Workers at the Viceroy and Fairmont Miramar hotels also are organized.
Managers at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel agreed last year to let union officials gather signatures in what’s known as a “card-check process.” Under a card check process, union officials have an extended period of time — two to three years — to gather signatures from employees who want to organize.
Petersen wouldn’t say how many cards have been gathered at Loews over the past nine months, but said the real victory is not in gathering signatures but in getting the management to agree to the card-check process in the first place.
Sheraton managers agreed a month ago to the card-check process. Under the agreement, managers stay neutral while union officials gather signatures. Sheraton managers said Tuesday they look forward to taking the next step in their new partnership with the union.
“We’re committed to a strong relationship with the employees and we feel that we’re entering into a new era of coopera-tion and mutual respect with the union,” said Kate Bartolo, senior vice president for the Kor Group, which owns the Sheraton, as well as the nearby Viceroy Hotel.
The union is actively engaged in efforts to unionize the Doubletree Guest Suites Hotel, located on Pico Boulevard. Petersen said the ultimate goal is to have a union presence in all 10 of Santa Monica’s high-end hotels. Those still without any union presence are the Doubletree, the Radisson Huntley Hotel, Shutters on the Beach, Le Merigot Beach Hotel, the Holiday Inn Santa Monica Pier and Casa Del Mar.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 3, 2003. Read the original PDF.