LIVING WAGE COALITION IN THE NEWS

North Bay Progressive
December 19, 2003-January 16, 2004

Petaluma Sheraton Workers Defend the Right to Organize

By Eileen Morris

Some 80 Sheraton Hotel employees in Petaluma are looking forward to a happy and prosperous New Year, having just regained their opportunity to organize without interference from hotel owners.

The Hotel and Restaurant Workers Union has a new memorandum of understanding with hotel owners that allows the union to organize for up to nine months under a "card check neutrality agreement." Under a card check neutrality agreement, employers agree to let employees anonymously sign cards, denoting their willingness to join a union. A neutral third party counts the signatures and announces the results. The employer agrees not to try to influence or dispute the election results or process.

The card check provision was one of the conditions the city of Petaluma required when it agreed to loan the hotel developers up to $2.7 million to help cover construction and initial operating expenses. Now, the city, the hotel owners, and WG Investments, the hotel's main creditor are involved in messy financial negotiations about the terms of the loan, whether it will ever be repaid, and whether the city must continue to loan money to the hotel.

WG Investments, the hotel's main creditor, has taken control of hotel operations. A bad economy and high vacancy rates prevented the original developers from making payments to WG, according to Tom Birdsall, WG's representative.

In September, Birdsall informed the City Council that WG Investments believed it was within its rights to foreclose on the hotel. That action, Birdsall said, would obviate the hotel's requirement to abide by the card check agreement and repay a substantial loan to the city. WG's pronouncement about union organizing provoked a huge outcry in the community.

Hotel employees and other union and living wage supporters crowded the City Council chambers for that September meeting, reminding the City Council that its original rationales for making the loan to the hotel developers was to promote the creation of well-paying service sector jobs. Some 44 percent of the jobs created in Sonoma County between 1995 and 2002 paid less than $10 per hour, Living Wage Coalition chairman Marty Bennett reminded the Council. Those kind of jobs rob employees of their dignity and the public and nonprofit sectors of their resources: those who cannot afford health care and other basic necessities will need to access emergency health care services and assistance programs.

Many in the standing room only crowd wore yellow union placards around their necks, but few Sheraton employees spoke-not surprising, according to Chris Rak, the lead union organizer, who told the Council that the union had had troubles getting access to the hotel workers since the new management had come on board.

Hotel employees Lourdes Coronado and Manuel Rojo told the Council that the vast majority of their colleagues supported the union, but were afraid to speak in public, for fear of being fired.

Rak said that he was not predicting that the Sheraton would fire employees if they card check neutrality agreement did not remain in effect, but, he said, "We've seen it happen in too many other places to feel comfortable."

Rak told the Council that he believed a card check neutrality agreement was in everyone's interest. No one could prevent the workers from organizing, as is their right under Federal law, he said. "But there are two ways to get there. One is a peaceful path, brokered in productive talks. That's what we're hopeful will happen. The other is an ugly one. Often, union organizing campaigns can drag out for years, and they don't benefit anyone.

Father Abel Mena from St. Vincent's Catholic Church, who attended with a large contingent his Latino parishioners, told the Council, "What is at stake is the harmony of our community."

After that September meeting, WG and the hotel and restaurant employees union sat down and worked out a new agreement. On December 1, Birdsall informed the Council that WG would abide by the new non-interference agreement regardless of the outcome of its loan negotiations with the city.

"Ultimately, I think the owners just recognized that it was a win-win situation,"said Bennett, chair of the Sonoma County Living Wage Coalition. Two years ago, the coalition helped negotiate the public/private partnership between the Sheraton and the City of Petaluma that ensured that the Sheraton would provide well-paying service sector jobs, and stay out of employee efforts to unionize.

Eileen Morris is a member of the Living Wage Coalition of Sonoma County who lives in Petaluma.

For more information about the organizing campaign at the Petaluma Sheraton call Hotel Employees, Restaurant Employees Local 2850 organizer Jamie Thompson at 510-219-6358 x119 or here2850@igc.apc.org




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LIVING WAGE COALITION OF SONOMA COUNTY
Phone: 707-623-7395
Email: livingwagesoco@gmail.com
PO Box 427
Santa Rosa, CA 95402