Comment on the SF Hotel strike

by | Oct 27, 2004 | Strikes

The mayor of San Francisco is encouraging a boycott of the group of 14 hotels locking out their workers in a labor dispute with UNITE HERE. Nathan over at labor blog calls the lockout “public relations suicide” and questions how the hotels can argue with a straight face that agreeing to a two-year agreement (to create 10-city joint negotiations and increase economic pressure against multinational hotel firms) might be destabilizing to the San Francisco economy when their lockout is doing the same thing. One might ask the same question of UNITE HERE – how can the union and its predictable parade of hollywood stars and political panderers (the mayor, Jesse Jackson, John Edwards, et al.) complain (with a straight face) about a lockout that they brought on by calling a two-week strike (a colossal blunder that upped the ante and resulted in the 14 hotel lockout in the first place). Their demand for common expiration dates practically guarantees additional strikes in two years. How long do they think members and the public will honor pickets for a purely institutional goal of the union? This is going to end badly for UNITE HERE, but it is going to be even worse for its members who will never recoup the wages they are losing in a strike to protect a union that is supposed to be looking out for their best interests.

INK Newsletter

APPROACHABILITY MINUTE

GET OUR RETENTION TOOLKIT

PUBLICATIONS

Archives

Categories