As about 400 people gathered for the Governor's Conference on
Tourism, a small group of hotel workers and their supporters staged an
impromptu news conference Tuesday at the Duluth Entertainment
Convention Center.
Using the event as a backdrop, they raised concerns about worker
pay and demanded hotels make it easier for employees to unionize.
Members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local 99
renewed their call to boycott five Canal Park hotels: Canal Park Inn,
Comfort Suites, Hampton Inn, Hawthorn Suites and the Inn on Lake
Superior. The boycott began in December when the hotels failed to heed
HERE's request that employees be allowed to organize if a simple
majority of workers sign cards indicating they wish to be represented
by the union.
John Goldfine, president of ZMC Hotels, which owns the Inn on Lake
Superior, contends workers already have rights to unionize. If
one-third of workers sign statements saying they wish to organize, the
National Labor Relations Board will authorize a secret-ballot vote.
He said the approach proposed by HERE would deprive workers of
privacy and subject them to pressure. "The question becomes: What
is a fair election?'' Goldfine said.
Goldfine favors keeping an independent third party involved in the
process -- the NLRB. "I don't think the NLRB is meant to
represent us, and I don't think they're meant to represent the
union,'' Goldfine said. "The intent was for the NLRB to represent
workers. Now why do they want to take that away?''
HERE Local 99 President Carol Carlson said the union has found the
NLRB election process highly problematic. She said workers who support
unions often face retribution from employers, and the elections can be
subject to challenges and lengthy delays. For those reasons, HERE has
been pushing employers to accept the results of card drives.
The card drives actually hold unions to a higher standard, Carlson
said. She explained that more than half the total work force at a
hotel must support joining a union before a card drive is successful.
In contrast, she said fewer people must be swayed to win a majority in
an election where some workers fail to participate.
HERE Local 99 represents about 650 employees working at businesses
from Duluth to International Falls. If the five Canal Park hotels
unionize, Carlson said HERE would gain about 200 members.
Adam Ritscher, a housekeeper at the Inn on Lake Superior, said
something needs to be done to put an end to what he called
"poverty wages.''
The Minnesota Department of Economic Security estimates that hotels
in Duluth employ about 900 people at an average hourly wage of $5.96.
Ritscher found irony in one of the conference slogans:
"Tourism works.'' "Tourism works for the hotel owners and
investors,'' he said. "But it does not work for the housekeeping
people and the other employees who form the backbone of the tourism
industry.''
Ritscher pledged that he and others would work to change the
situation.
Carlson said the public can expect to see more picketing and
demonstrations outside the five boycotted Canal Park hotels in coming
weeks. She described another tactic as "the wake-up call.'' In
this exercise, hotel workers and supporters march around a hotel at 7
a.m., shouting and banging on pots and pans.
Goldfine said the wages and benefits ZMC employees receive are
competitive with those workers are offered at Duluth's two union
hotels: the Radisson and the Holiday Inn. He believes the union's
activities and its call for a boycott has had little, if any, effect
on the Inn on Lake Superior. "Our business has been tracking
upward,'' he said.
"They're doing nothing but harassing people and giving the
community a bad reputation as a whole,'' Goldfine said.
PETER PASSI covers business. Call him at (218)
279-5526 or (800) 456-8282 or e-mail him at ppassi@duluthnews.com.
