Union representation
One on one, workers are no match for management. But when workers band together to join our union, they win the right to negotiate over pretty much anything that affects them at work and they gain access to experts who can represent them at the bargaining table, in grievance meetings, and at City Hall.
Tough and experienced representatives
Our members pool their financial resources to employ over 100 full-time professional staff including: lawyers who negotiate contracts, business agents who enforce those contracts, HEAT organizers who train and mobilize our members in large numbers, external organizers who help non-union workers win union representation, political strategists, researchers, communications staff, software developers, operations staff, and more.
Everyone who works for the union puts their talent and expertise toward one mission: to improve the lives of our members by negotiating for, protecting, and empowering workers in the hotel and gaming industries.
Contract enforcement
A union contract is a legally-binding agreement between our union and the employer – but a contract is not worth the paper it’s written on if we can’t make management live up to their end of the deal. That’s where our union’s contract enforcement team comes in.
The workers represented by our union have experienced representatives who enforce the contract at their workplace, defend them in disciplinary cases, and negotiate over their working conditions.
Delegates
Our union’s 5,500 delegates and assistant delegates are the first line of defense. Delegates are members who work in union hotels, clubs, restaurants, and casinos, who are appointed by the union’s leadership to act as rank-and-file union representatives. They are the eyes and ears of the union on the shop floor and they are responsible for getting to the bottom of potential contract violations and resolving them when they can. To ensure their ability to vigorously represent their co-workers, delegates have enhanced contractual protections covering discharge, suspensions, and layoffs.
How are delegates selected?
Delegates are appointed by the union’s elected leadership. Upon request, non-binding referendum votes are held to determine the membership’s preference for who is appointed as their delegate.
Business Agents
Every union shop is assigned a Business Agent, a professionally trained representative who is responsible for coaching delegates, enforcing the contract, handling grievances, and representing members who are facing discipline and termination.
Business Agents are supervised by HTC’s Regional Directors and elected leadership.
HEAT: Hotel Employees Action Team
Unlike many other unions, our union has a team of organizers dedicated to keeping our members informed, engaged, and united.
HEAT was created ahead of the 2006 New York City contract fight to prepare our members for a potential city wide strike. At the time, employers across the country were cutting benefits, making workers pay more for healthcare, and eliminating pensions. We knew we needed to be ready to fight to protect our benefits in those negotiations. So, we began assembling HEAT TEAMS at hotels across the City. The hotel industry watched us build this power and ready ourselves for a potential strike. Largely because of the work that HEAT did, we came out of those negotiations with the best contract in the world, without a strike.
After the 2006 contract was won, HEAT transformed into a permanent system for mobilizing our members and building the union's power.
HEAT Organizers
Every union shop is assigned a HEAT Organizer who is responsible for informing members about the threats our union faces and what we can do to combat them. HEAT Organizers mobilize members to attend union events including strikes, picket lines, rallies, trainings, and political actions. They are also responsible for building the union’s HEAT SYSTEM by recruiting, training, and coordinating our union’s rank-and-file HEAT CAPTAINS.
HEAT CAPTAINS
Many of the union’s most active members have stepped up to lead as HEAT CAPTAINS. HEAT CAPTAINS are appointed by the union’s elected leadership to do the work needed to make our union stronger. They are responsible for assembling a team of 10-15 coworkers who they are responsible for keeping informed and mobilizing to union events and picket lines.
Union Organizers
Organizing workers in non-union hotels is at the heart of our mission to help hotel and gaming workers better their lives by winning union representation.
What is awful for workers is generally good for hotel profits. Wages at non-union hotels are, on average, half of those at union hotels. Non-union hotels save money by offering worse healthcare and retirement benefits, demanding more work from fewer employees, and sending workers home without pay when it's not busy. The labor laws that were created to protect the rights of workers to organize and change these conditions have gotten weaker and, in many cases, even been turned against workers.
Our union's organizers lead workers through the frightening and grueling ordeal of an organizing drive and contract fight. Every year, they help hundreds of workers to become union members and profoundly change their lives.
Lawyers
Every year, our union's legal team negotiates hundreds of agreements - from a hotel's first union contract, to side agreements that modify the master contract at each property, to agreements regarding hotel sales, severance, and employee discipline. Not only do they take on management at the bargaining table, but they represent workers in arbitration and the courts.