The contract gives 160 hotel workers a $2.60 wage increase over the three years of the contract. It also provides free health insurance for families when employees work at least 25 hours.
Combined with union contracts at three other nearby hotels, the contracts will create what labor and civic leaders are calling a "multiplier effect." The contracts will mean hotel workers will earn an extra $12.3 million in wages through 2012 and labor officials estimate more than 66 percent of that will be reinvested and spent in the communities surrounding LAX. The contracts- which cover about 1000 workers in all- will generage about $2.9 million in revenue in the community, labor leaders said.
"Union contract means that I will mean that I will be able to provide for my family better," Ricardo Blanco, a room service worker said. "It will mean that I no longer have to worry about my wife not having medical benefits. I will be able to put money aside for my children in the future."
Card check neutrality was part of the agreement, which essentially means that management would not interfere or retaliate against workers who wanted to form a union.
Across the nation, employers continue to assail unions as job killers. LAX Radisson owner Peter Dumon said that happy workers means happy customers.
"Our general take on business is being a union hotel is good for business," he said. "We want to limit turnover of our employees because we invest a lot of training. We have a corporate philosophy that people don't enjoy serving others aren't going to be good in this business and aren't going to take care of our customers."
Dumon said the hotel owners resisting union activity may be "short sighted."
"In our industry, there's not a lower wage you can find overseas," he said. "The knee-jerk reaction that unions are bad to me is is untrue. The challenge we've got in this country is people disagree on facts, and that's wrong. There are things that have worked time and time and time again and this is one of them. This is going to good for our hotel...It's in our interest as businessmen to have a long-term labor force here."
In the press conference, Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl said Dumon's position was "enlightened." Dumon and Unite-Here Local 11 President Tom Walsh saw this as a business win-win.
"He's just a smart business man, because it's smart to do what was done today, especially in the service industry where what you're selling is not the design of the lobby... but the experience people have," Walsh said. "If people are coming to work at poverty jobs... it's hard for them to really do good work. On the other hand, if they are excited and love their job, then they can do just so much better."
Walsh also praised Dumon for working with a union is "a courageous thing for him to do."
"A lot of other owners, I'm sure are criticizing him for it. But he is setting an example," Walsh said.
Union growth was spun as the best kind of economic stimulus by civic, labor and hotel officials.
"This continues my commitment to put a conference center here on Century Boulevard so this becomes a destination point and not just a transit point," Rosendahl said. "The other side has to realize where we are today needs a lot of economic stimulus and commitment from government. Unions provide the vehicle to create the strength of the middle class."
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