A labor-management partnership: San Francisco's hotels and the employees' union try a new approach

Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly

Volumn 41, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 14-29

  Korshak, Stuart R ^a  

^a Korshak Kracoff Kong and Sugano   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0034165114     PISSN: 00108804     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/S0010-8804(00)88894-1     Document Type: Article

References (8)

1. 1 The hotels are Argent, Crowne Plaza, Fairmont, Grand Hyatt, Hilton Hotel & Towers, Holiday Inn Civic Center, Holiday Inn Financial District, Holiday Inn Fisherman's Wharf, Hyatt Regency, Sheraton Palace, and Westin St. Francis.
2. 2 A more detailed discussion of the genesis of the partnership can be found in: Stuart Korshak, "Negotiating Trust in the San Francisco Hotel Industry," California Management Review, Vol. 38, No.1 (Fall 1995), p. 117.
3. 3 The San Francisco hotels had a long and devastating strike in 1980, which the union won - obtaining a rich contract in the settlement. In the 1983 negotiations, the union again won a good settlement, and the hotels narrowly avoided another strike. Those strikes caused the dismantling of San Francisco's original multiemployer group. Morale and relationships between workers and managers remained poor for the ensuing ten years.
4. 4 See: Frederick Knapp, "The Sheraton Palace: Preserving the Past, Positioning for the Future," Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 4 (December 1991), pp. 13-23.
5. 5 For a discussion of the situation of unionized hotel restaurants, see: John McLaughlin, "Union Soldiers; Organized Labor Is Fighting for Its Life, and It's Got Some Brand-new Tricks up Its Sleeves," Restaurant Business, November 20, 1994, pp. 66-69, 72.
6. 6 The joint steering committee conducted a random survey in 1997-1998, which found that a substantial percentage of the managers and workers surveyed saw an improvement in these areas.
7. 7 The Education Fund is bargained under the dictates of the Taft-Hartley Act, and its director is a jointly selected position. It had traditionally provided small-scale training programs, which the multiemployer group and the union substantially expanded through this partnership.
8. 8 For example, the director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, John Calhoun Wells, wrote the hotel chains in praise of their partnership efforts (see the box on page 23). Partnership members have also addressed numerous conferences and their efforts have been written about in numerous articles.