Contract negotiations: What’s got to go

At the Hilton Membership Meeting last Thursday, Local 610 President, Felix Mejias shared his thoughts regarding the upcoming negotiations.

He announced that for the first time, Local 610 members will have the opportunity to participate directly, not only in the drafting of contract proposals, but in the negotiations themselves.

President Mejias also recommended to the membership that the union's main goals for the negotiations should be to achieve fundamental changes in all three contracts that would restore management's respect for the union. The following is a short summary of the principles outlined by President Mejias.

A FAIR SYSTEM FOR CONTRACT ENFORCEMENT

Mejias stated that the union's number one priority should be the elimination of the unequitable and cumbersome grievance and arbitration procedure. He explained in detail how management in all three hotels regularly abuses the grievance procedure by refusing to resolve grievances in good faith and then deliberately delaying each step in the process. Management refuses to schedule meetings more than once a week. They often impose arbitrary time limits that make it impossible to address all the grievances that arose during the previous week, and as a result the list of pending grievances continually grows. Management habitually refuses to provide the union with relevant information or evidence needed to prepare a grievance and, as a result, the union has been forced to file unfair labor practice charges with the Labor Board against all three hotels simply to enforce its basic legal rights. It is also routine for managers to arrogantly refuse to reconsider its decisions even when they are clearly shown to violate the contract.

The existing contract imposes strict time limitations on the union that often serve no other purpose than to obstruct the union's ability to enforce its members' rights.

On the other hand, the contract allows management to use absurd technicalities to delay the progress of the union's grievances for unreasonably long time periods. Even when management has made it crystal clear that it has no intention of reconsidering its position regarding a grievance, it always insists that the union go through each unnecessary meeting (step) mandated by the contract before it can take a case to arbitration. These delaying tactics often make it impossible to win an acceptable remedy even if the union wins the case, because by the time the case is decided the damage has already been done.

According to Mejias: "The current grievance and arbitration process is the classic example of the old saying: Justice delayed is justice denied.'"

Until the grievance procedure is streamlined and made more effective, management can essentially violate members' contractual rights at will. Absent this change, management will continue to get away with abusing the contract.

ELIMINATE THE "EMERGENCY" SCHEDULING LOOPHOLE

Under the existing contracts, Local 610 members are supposed to have the right to five days' notice of a change of schedule. This is one of their most important contract rights. In a business that operates seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, hotel workers understand that they are often required to work when most people don't, but their right to five days' notice of a schedule change at least gives them a vitally important measure of stability and predictability in planning their personal lives.

Unfortunately, management in all three hotels frequently changes employees' schedules with less notice by claiming the existence of an "emergency." As it turns out, management has a ridiculously broad definition of the word "emergency."

Is a broken printer an emergency? According to management it is. Recently, management used that emergency to justify posting the employees' schedules late. One member observed: "I guess management never heard of a pencil."

Another common example of management's notion of an emergency is when one or more employees call in sick. Most employers understand that employees, like other human beings, sometimes get sick, and that sick calls are not a reason to call out the National Guard.

Management conveniently calls minor inconveniences like these "emergencies," and as a result, members have to completely rearrange their lives to accommodate abrupt changes in their work schedules. These last-minute scheduling changes make something as simple as scheduling a doctor's appointment or a parent teacher conference impossible.

AMNESTY ON ALL "FINAL WARNINGS"

Over the years,management has systematically manipulated the contracts' faulty grievance procedure to coerce many members into accepting so-called "final warnings." Management brings disciplinary charges against a member, suspends him or her (without pay, of course), and then drags the grievance resolution process out to a point where the member has no choice but to accept management's offer to return to work with a final warning. Often members agree to final warnings even though management has little or no evidence that the member is guilty of an infraction, or even if the infraction is not serious to justify such a penalty. Once on final warning, a member is deprived of his most important contract right: job security. Members under final warning are essentially turned into employees "at will" and have to worry that management will fire them for the tiniest mistake.

At the meeting President Mejias announced his contract proposal that all final warnings be removed from members' records. The room erupted with applause after this announcement.

FAIR AND REASONABLE ECONOMIC DEMANDS

Mejias stated that a reasonable wage increase is a must in the upcoming contract, as well as improvements in members' health benefits. He stated that co-payments are too high and need to be reduced. Facing the threat of an increase in health care premiums, Felix plans to fight for provisions in the contract that require management to provide a set standard of coverage which cannot be changed simply because the cost of that plan changes.

A HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY

In conclusion, Mejias explained to the membership that Local 610 has a historic opportunity, in these negotiations, to make fundamental improvements to the contract, thereby restoring management's respect for the employees and their union. He pointed out that Local 610 has the solid financial support of its International Union, UNITE HERE, which has pledged a $300 per week strike benefit to support Local 610 members in the event of a strike, and the support of its sister local union, Local 6 in New York, which is providing Local 610 with vitally important staff support and organizing and negotiating expertise.

Mejias, observed that: "Every ingredient for a successful contract fight is present, provided that the members in all three Hilton properties stand united and ready to fight for their rights if necessary."