Unionize the hospitality sector, share the wealth
Thursday night, February 9, I attended a rally in support of the workers at the Fairmont Hotel. The engaged turnout, the numbers, and the energy of this mixed assembly of Latino and Anglo workers and community supporters was one of the most heartening public events I have attended since the pandemic hiatus. My last Sun column’s header said, ‘History is not over yet.’ I really felt it that evening. The century-long struggle of the labor movement to achieve a decent and dignified standard of living for the wage-earning class is far from realized. The workers at the Fairmount are being subjected to the standard anti-union tactics that every new private sector union-in-formation is routinely subjected to.
Case in point: remember the moment of triumph last year when the workers at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art voted successfully to unionize? Well, cherish that brief hit of dopamine cope because, as I predicted, months into multiple bargaining sessions, nothing is moving. The bargaining sessions have yielded no movement. The long after-hours meetings (typically uncompensated time for the staff union members) with bad-faith union-busting lawyers who are making bank for taking up your limited personal time playing rope-a-dope legalistic obfuscation games, which never arrive at a concrete outcome.
Depending on how deep the pockets of the organization buying the services of mercenary union-busting law firms, this holding pattern can replicate for years. The long-term strategy is to firmly communicate that Resistance is Futile. Y’all can form a union, but that doesn’t mean we have to respect it. Management can simply pay lawyers to conduct Potemkin bargaining to keep everyone busy while they steadily weed out the ‘troublemakers and malcontents’ through the rigorous and tendentious application of HR standards.
As the disillusioned young workers drift away to more promising jobs, at some point, management can hit the magic number of one less than 50% and coerce the by-now pacified workforce to de-cert the union. That’s the new union buster 101 game plan, folks. I hope that the museum board intervenes to direct the legal team to draw up an expedited settlement with the union.
Unlike a privately held corporation, the museum has a responsibility to the public. The board can direct counsel to protect the institution’s social capital by settling fairly and swiftly. As a board member, the fiduciary responsibility does not end with merely hiring a union-busting firm and letting their shark lawyers loose to do what sharks do. I sincerely hope that the board takes charge of the direction of their hired counsel and presses for a rapid settlement. There’s a lot at stake for SVMA. It’s time to take charge and direct counsel to negotiate a contract.
Unfortunately, the Biden Administration lost its claim to the mantle of FDR when back in December, they caved to the railroad robber barons in their Dickensian cruelty and greed. Biden failed to use that golden opportunity to cement his reputation as an heir of FDR by using the power placed in his hands by Federal law to unilaterally settle the national railroad strike question by simply mandating two weeks of paid sick time for all railroad workers. There you go, I fixed it. That would have been Patco in reverse. Labor activists would be holding tailgate victory parties. Did not happen. Biden is no FDR.
That said, old Delaware Joe still has a few tricks up his sleeve as a veteran politician. His state of the union speech was a masterclass. He trolled the MAGA Q contingent so deftly that he goaded half the Republican caucus into standing up for protecting Social Security and Medicare, and then found themselves looking around, wait, what? I thought we wanted to privatize Social Security and sunset Medicare? Got rolled by the wily old pro. It was a great moment. Whatever drug cocktail they’re feeding him, keep it coming.
