Sat, 25 Jul 1998 14:32:43 -0700 (PDT) Sat, 25 Jul 1998 14:32:15 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1998 14:32:15 -0700 (PDT) To: BETHHESS@aol.com From: Michael Eisenscher Subject: Re: The Nikko labor-rap@csf.colorado.edu Beth, Rather than my being an intermediary, I suggest you speak to folks at the union (HERE Local 2). I spoke to Kevin O'Connor, who is director of organizing. The Local's president is Mike Casey. You can reach either at 415-864-8770. (Mike is at Ext. 731). My original objection was that the meeting, including sessions of the Labor Section, was booked into a non-union hotel. It was not that the management of this hotel did or did not do any particular thing. I would not expect a management representative to say anything but that they are always "fair," "just," "treat employees with respect," etc. I also would expect them to say, "We don't believe our employees would benefit from having a 'third party' interjected between them and us....Our door is always open to any employee who wants to speak to management about any problem or discontent....We don't believe our employees are well served by the kind of 'adversarialism' that an outside union would bring to our relationship....Our wages and benefits are competitive or superior to anything the union can offer...." I have heard these speeches (or variations of them) many times before. Any half-assed labor consultant or union-avoidance law firm can crank one out at a moment's notice. You seem to have set this up as some kind of a debate between the Nikko's management and members who oppose the use of non-union facilities as if the issue is how Nikko treats its workers. I reject that construction of the issue. There is nothing the manager of the Nikko can contribute to a policy discussion about whether SSSP ought to use unionized facilities or not. (I am assuming he is not a SSSP member.) The issue is use of a non-union facility in a city where 80% of the Class A hotels are organized. This is not about who beats up on their workers, or what some employer did or did not do to its employees, or whether the management of the Nikko offers any particular inducement to keep its employees non-union. I am not aware of a single member of the Labor Section who would not find it contradictory, if not embarassing, to hold discussions about workers' rights and struggles for justice, or the future of the labor movement in a non-union hotel in a town full of organized convention hotels. I am embarassed to have been asked to appear on a panel under those circumstances, and to have been a member of an organization that I had been led to believe represented the most "progressive" wing of the sociology profession. I was mistaken. I advised Art Shostak I would not enter the Nikko and resigned my membership from the SSSP in protest. I believe you ought to ask remaining members of the Labor Section if any of them would be willing to appear. I have taken the liberty of making a copy of this response available to the Labor-Rap discussion list to which a number of Labor Section members subscribe. Michael At 04:09 PM 7/25/1998 EDT, BETHHESS@aol.com wrote: >Thanks for your prompt reply -- can you find out anything more concrete about >the San Francisco situation -- "rebuffed approaches" is a bit unclear. The >Nikko claims that its service personnel have been amicably unionized in New >York and Hawaii, and that there is not a "history of hostility" between it and >its SF employees -- plus that they offer a wage and benefit package "far >superior" to any other in San Francisco. > >I have scheduled an Open Forum on Thursday at the 12-30-2:15 slot on the >"State of Labor Relations at Some San Francisco Hotels" -- at the Nikko -- and >invited their General manager, John Hutar, and also asked Amy Wharton to pick >some panelists from the Labor Studies Division. Do you have any colleagues >who would be willing to enter the Nikko and participate? I figure we can use >the occasion to educate our members and the hotel people. > >