Four Points Sheraton agrees to card check election
After months of pressure, a Santa Monica hotel has agreed to let its employees decide if they want to be represented by a union.
Union representatives since March have been protesting the Four Points Sheraton on Pico Boulevard, demanding that its management allow hotel workers the right to unionize.
“We’re at peace with Four Points now,” said Kurt Petersen, organizing director for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local # 11. “And every hotel owner knows that sooner or later they’re going to have to do the same thing.”
Petersen said the union will now target the 253-room Doubletree Hotel. Of the 10 large hotels in Santa Monica, two are unionized, two have agreed to let their employees decide and the other six don’t have any union presence.
Kate Bartolo, senior vice president of the Kor Group, which owns the 314-room Four Points as well as the Viceroy Hotel on Ocean Avenue, said the decision concludes four months of negotiation.
69F,“At the end of the day we recognized that there was a real value in forging a partnership with the union,” she said.
Four Points workers on Monday expressed ambivalence towards the prospect of unionizing. Some say labor organizers have made bold promises about the union, but refuse to offer anything in writing.
“It’s like the government,” said one long-time restaurant worker who asked not to be identified. “They’ll say anything to get re-elected.”
Petersen maintained that the ultimate goal of the union is to improve working conditions for hotel workers.
“This industry, even since 9-11, is one of the most lucrative in California,” he said. “And we still don’t think wages and benefits are nearly what they should be.”
The agreement, which was announced Sunday night, calls for a two-year card-check election. In a card-check election, hotel officials agree to stay neutral and union supporters have an extended period of time to gather signatures from employees who want to be organized.
When they have the backing of the majority of employees, union officials “call” the election and an arbitrator counts the signatures. Hotel managers and union representatives then negotiate a contract.
Petersen said union supporters began gathering signatures even before the agreement was reached and already have more than the required 50 percent. But they will keep gathering support before calling the election in order to solidify more of the work force, Petersen added.
Managers at the 346-room Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel agreed to a similar card-check election in December. Petersen wouldn’t say how many signatures have been gathered there or when the election is likely to be called.
The two local hotels already unionized are the 160-room Viceroy Hotel, which signed a contract with the union in July of 2001, and the 302-room Fairmont Miramar Hotel, whose contract began in June of 2000.
With the Four Points agreement, more than half of the 2,222 upper-end hotel rooms in Santa Monica are either covered by union contract or by a card-check agreement. Those without any union presence are the Doubletree, the 213-room Radisson Huntley Hotel, the 198-room Shutters on the Beach, the 175-room Le Merigot Beach Hotel, the 132-room Holiday Inn Santa Monica Pier and the 129-room Casa Del Mar.
Vivian Rothstein, the director for Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism, a non-profit organization that aims to improve wages and conditions for local workers, applauded the Four Points agreement.
“We’re establishing a new standard in Santa Monica for corporate responsibility,” she said.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on July 29, 2003. Read the original PDF.