Beware of outside agitators!

As reported previously, Long Beach hotel workers have recently protested against low pay and elusive health benefits.  Their complaints are not unfounded: pay in the Long Beach hospitality sector is well below the national average.  The workers are supported by the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and Healthy Communities–which has argued that poor pay in the local hospitality industry is contributing to Long Beach’s truly abysmal poverty rate–along with at least two City Councilmembers.

We spoke with the Long Beach Hospitality Alliance’s Mike Murchison about the recent march, the workers’ and Coalition’s claims, and the U-word (“Union”!):

A little background:  In addition to representing specific hotels—like the Long Beach Marriott and the Long Beach Hyatt—you also represent a consortium of local hotels, the Long Beach Hospitality Alliance.  When was the Alliance formed?

Let’s see…October of 2005.  It came as a result of then-Vice Mayor Bonnie Lowenthal introducing a motion to direct the City Attorney to come out with a Labor Peace Ordinance.  The hotels didn’t know anything about it, were caught off guard, reached out to me and said, “Hey, we don’t know anything about this, we don’t understand this, can you get together with us?”  So we formed the Alliance at that point in time, to discuss the impact of hotels on city-leased land.  Subsequent to that, the Hilton called me up because of the discussions that were going on because UNITE HERE was attempting to unionize the Hilton hotel employees.  And then the Hyatt called and said, “Hey, we’re getting the same kind of phone calls.”  And that’s where things started.

Have you had any contact with members of the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and Healthy Communities?

No.

None whatsoever?

Nope.

No one has contacted you at all?  How about anyone from UNITE HERE?

I sat down with UNITE HERE representatives back in ’05 and a little bit of ’06, back when we were trying to figure out if there was a compromise on the Labor Peace Ordinance.  Attorneys from both sides sat in on those meetings, and at the end of the day–because of impact on the value of the hotels if they were to go from non-union to union, and how a potential investor-slash-buyer would look at the hotels, and then what it would do to the actual leases–we couldn’t reach an agreement.  So I’ve talked to UNITE HERE’s people; I’ve had quite a few–[laughs]–dialogues with them.  I ran into them when they were leading the charge outside the Hilton on the walk that occurred several weeks back, but I haven’t talked to that Coalition.

The problem that I have, to be honest with you, is that I don’t see the Coalition as representing Long Beach.  I see it as representing LA, [which is] trying to pick up more union membership from Long Beach.  I don’t see it as a Long Beach employee-driven deal; I see it more as UNITE HERE based in LA and Orange Country trying to pick up Long Beach on a national level, because of national contracts.

There are employees who have come forward and complained that despite working for as long as ten years in the same hotel they are still making $9 an hour working in the kitchen.  They do live here in Long Beach.  And $19k a year for full-time work seems, well…that is below the poverty level.

Yeah, but I would put that in a context of hourly employees, who may or may not be married with families, and who may or may not be educated.  You have to have an education, as you and I both know, to go up in life.  Is the pay, from a generic standpoint, low across the board?  Probably.  But given the responsibilities they have and the jobs that they are doing, and given the industry they’re in, that’s the expectation, whether it’s union or non-union.

But it’s also the case that Long Beach pay is lower than the national average.  Certainly it’s not less expensive to live in Long Beach than it is to live in the Midwest or the South.

Well, that’s symptomatic of California as a whole, in terms of the cost of living.  That’s not just Long Beach, that’s across the board.

But normally, salaries do work to keep pace with local living expenses.

In general industries, I probably would agree with you.

And is there any particular reason that that isn’t the case—

In the hospitality industry?  I don’t have an answer for you on that.  I’m not educated enough to give you an answer on that, at least an intelligent answer that would make sense.  I’m not in the position to do that, that’s just not my…that’s not my core-competency of my knowledge base.  The hotels have hired me to educate the public [and] elected officials [so that they understand] the pros and the cons.

It seems that there would be some pros for workers who live in Long Beach, because without question–while unions aren’t widespread in the hospitality industry–nationally at those institutions that are unionized the salaries are definitely higher.

You can make that argument in some cases but you have to break it down into the various job classifications you’re talking about.  If you’re talking about housekeepers, then you got to get specifically into a discussion of how many rooms they clean versus the hourly wage they make.  But if you’re talking about desk personnel, I would argue that Hyatt pays better [than union].  You can cry out about poverty and the inability to buy a home, but you have to make the argument:  apples and apples.

If you’re going to make the statement about hourly wage, is that the sole reason of what we’re being paid to do?  Is somebody looking at that and saying, “OK, I make ten bucks an hour, I should be making twelve bucks an hour, and I could be doing that with a union”?  OK, [but] what’s the full compensation package we’re talking about?  Not just health benefits, but look at education reimbursement, upward mobility, cross training, the [free] meals, all that.  If you’re going to factor in a total compensation package, that’s the way you need to do it.  And nobody on the union side is willing to do that.  They want to just hammer away on the hourly wage in a certain classification.

You’ve mentioned regular satisfaction surveys in earlier statements.  So have employees said to you, “No thanks, we don’t want more money, because it means we’re going to have to give up on the free meals and the ability transfer, and we like things just the way they are”?

Well, I don’t think the questions were asked that way, no.  But I do think that if you look at the major hotels that have been alluded to—Hilton, Hyatt, and Airport Marriot—the satisfaction surveys are way above—way above—what you would expect.  In Hyatt’s case, they’re in the 90th percentile.

In your press statement, you indicated that you would prefer that employees participate in a secret ballot election, administered by National Labor Relations Board, where employees could be anonymous and free from influence.  The next question that I have:  were the employee satisfaction surveys filled out under the same conditions?  Were employees assured of anonymity, or were they told to just hand them in to a supervisor along with their time card?

To be honest with you, I don’t know the answer to that specifically as it relates to those surveys and the details involved.  Will I try to find out for you?  Sure.

In the Hilton’s case, are there a few employees that are upset that they are not part of a union?  I would agree, yes, I mean, they were out there, and you could see those Hilton employees. But I will tell you right now, factually, there are a very large group of the hourly employees at the Hilton that are anti-union, and that group is still building.  That group is not happy about joining a union, and is very happy about having the ability to go talk to their general manager directly, without having to go through a third party.

Then what would be the harm in having some sort of vote?

Through the NLRB process, the way it’s allocated now, there is no harm.  [But] if there is such a clamor for the poverty situation amongst the hourly employees, don’t you think that would have risen in a more vocal showing by Long Beach based employees?  A long time ago?

Certainly the Hospitality Alliance hotels aren’t responsible for all of the poverty in Long Beach, and the hospitality industry brings a lot of money into Long Beach.  In fact, the Coalition claims that Long Beach hotels are doing quite well, and seeing a steady increase in room and occupancy rates.

Are the hotels doing successful (sic)?  Sure, but I think that’s more a result of Steve Goodling’s efforts over at the CVB to bring conventions into town.

But again, if there is such a cry out there, why is it not out there?  Why is it that LA and Orange County, through Unite Here, have to influence what occurs in Long Beach?  If there is a problem, why am I not seeing a Coalition in Long Beach?  That Coalition you are referring to, that’s not Long Beach-based.  That’s LA-based.  I saw the players that were there, and they’re not Long Beach players.

So you know some of the employees?  You were able to recognize who was a Long Beach employee and who wasn’t?

No, but people who were there and did know told me.

UNITE HERE has a foothold in LA and not here, definitely.  But the Coalition’s members are Long Beach residents.  There are Cal State Long Beach professors…

I saw that, yes, that one female who spoke there, I saw that.

…And there were two city council members represented...

Careful how you get into that argument about council members, OK?  Because there’s a specific argument when it relates to the UNITE HERE and the relationship with council members. I would say six out of the nine [council members] are union-driven.  I don’t care so much about the elected officials, or outside entities such as the professor from Cal State Long Beach.  My point is the employees at the hotels:  if the conditions were such that they felt like they wanted to be unionized, and felt it was bad, why were the employees not out there, from Long Beach-based hotels that are non-union, clamoring for a change? Until then, it’s just outsiders telling Long Beach employees—dictating to Long Beach employees—how things should work in Long Beach.  And I don’t think that’s right.

I must point out that there is a rather noble history of “outsiders” coming into communities to help locals.  People with privileged backgrounds used to come into poor towns and tell garment workers that they deserved safe working conditions, and they were right.  Busloads of college kids from back east poured into Alabama to press for voting rights for local black citizens.  Please understand, I’m not in any way comparing you to segregationist South, I’m just saying that so-called “outside agitators” aren’t incorrect simply because they are outsiders.  Perhaps they have a point.

In principle, in theory, I completely agree.  I absolutely agree.

So I have to ask, really, one person to another:  what would be so terrible about a union?

[Laughs] Nothing.  Nothing at all.  But it has to be the free choice of employees.  And I see little sign that a majority of non-union employees in Long Beach feel the need to be unionized.

Tags: coalition for good jobs and healthy communities, HOTELS, labor, Long Beach, Mike Murchison, poverty, unions