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Hotel unions escape NLRB charge
February 25, 2005 by Ross Runkel at LawMemo

HERE UNITE Locals 2 and 11 are continuing their boycott against hotels in San Francisco and Los Angeles. One big sticking point in negotiations has been the unions' demands for two year contracts. Although there is a history of five and six year contracts, the two-year proposals were designed to coordinate expiration dates with major cities such as New York, Chicago, Boston, Honolulu, and Toronto.

The hotels went to the NLRB and charged that the locals' demands were unlawful. The theory: The unions were attempting to broaden the scope of their separate bargaining units and merge them into a single national bargaining unit.

The NLRB's Regional Directors sought advice from headquarters, and the General Counsel (essentially the NLRB's prosecuting office) decided the unions acted lawfully and the charges should be dismissed.

The General Counsel's Advice Memo is chock full of quotes from union officials who obviously would like to have some kind of nationwide bargaining. But the law is pretty clear. The fact that two locals get together and coordinate their demands is not illegal. So long as the locals bargain separately and bargain only about matters in their own bargaining units, there is no problem. Neither local ever asked to bargain on a national level.

The expiration date of a contract is a mandatory subject of bargaining (that is, you must bargain about it but you are not required to agree to it). Demanding a uniform expiration date relates to each local's bargaining unit because it effects each local's economic leverage. And that's exactly why the employers resist it.

So the trip to the NLRB was a diversion. And speaking of diversions, a number of conventions are re-scheduling for other venues.

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