Hyatt deal creates Denver's sole union hotel

Pact an outgrowth of Dems' support of labor movement

By Joanne Kelley, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Mireya De La Cruz's job at the Hyatt Regency Denver has her cleaning rooms and making beds during her eight-hour shift, but the exhausting nature of her work took a significant turn this week.

Under a five-year contract that went into effect Sunday, she and 350 other employees at the downtown hotel now have a pension plan, lower health costs and other benefits, such as a reduced workload for housekeepers.

While the agreement between the convention-center hotel and the labor union Unite Here has been years in the making, it resolves a pressing dilemma: Denver now has a unionized hotel. The lack of one had been a big sticking point for Democrats who will descend on the city in August for the party's national convention.

For workers such as De La Cruz, the contract means a decrease in the number of rooms she must clean each day to 18 from as many as 25 or 30.

"It's still a lot of hard work, but my body hurts less - it's more reasonable," De La Cruz told a reporter during her lunch break Wednesday. "When you clean too many rooms, it's hard to take a break because you don't have time."

The lack of any other labor contracts at area hotels to use as a starting point helped to lengthen the negotiating process, according to John Schafer, the hotel's general manager.

"It was rather unique because in many cities . . . there is an existing contract someplace else," Schafer said. "We don't have anything here. We're the only union hotel in, probably, this state and in five others around us."

Hyatt was chosen by the city to operate the convention hotel with the understanding the company would remain neutral if employees tried to form a union, noted Bill Mosher, chief executive officer of the hotel authority.

"We're just glad the agreement's been reached and we can move forward," Mosher said. "In the hotel business, the employees are nearly everything. We just hope we have a satisfied group of hotel employees who are going to go sell that hotel."

The Hyatt contract covers restaurant workers, bartenders, servers, banquet workers, phone operators, bell attendants, dishwashers, cooks, laundry workers, housemen, baristas and housekeepers. The Unite Here union represents 460,000 members in the hotel, food service, gaming, laundry, garment and textile industries.

In addition to getting annual wage increases, Hyatt Regency Denver employees will begin paying less for health care coverage in coming months.

"Insurance will be so much more affordable," said Gloria Apodaca, a phone operator who works the overnight shift at the hotel. "There are many individuals who can't afford the insurance right now. "

For now, having even one union hotel could head off labor- related problems when the Democratic National Convention rolls into town. Another plus for the city's labor image: Unite Here represents about 200 concession workers at the Pepsi Center, the site of the convention itself.

The Hyatt Regency, across the street from the downtown convention arena, will serve as the DNC headquarters hotel during the Aug. 25-28 event.

"We don't know exactly who's going to stay here," said the Hyatt's Schafer.

But he said he expects it to be a "who's who" list of guests.

• May 22, 2008

  7:27 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  jacka writes:

  Production down, costs up...so glad that the city was able to compromise with big labor to give the workers more. Closed shop by chance?

  This is the Ritter economic postulate, right? 1st unionize, you get less production, therefore management needs to increase the number of workers, thus decreasing unemployment.

  Yep, if we could only labor up we might be able to attract all those new businesses that want to come to Colorado because we have such a great union backed democrat controled government.

  The Ritter postulate = increasing taxes, increasing fees, unionizing state workers and driving a greater need for more state workers to complete the job.

• May 22, 2008

  10:01 a.m.

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  Gene writes:

  I would love to see an unbiased comparison of Ms. De La Cruz's job vs. an exact similar jog at a non-union hotel. Exact comparison of health insurance, pension, union dues, etc. What does a union worker actually get for the money. The union as a middleman cost has to be taken up somewhere, and I can't believe it all comes form the employer side.

• May 22, 2008

  11:19 a.m.

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  american writes:

  This is a good sign. Now the workers are being treated with respect. They now can actually take a break, have affordable healthcare and a pension plan. All workers should be afforded these choices.

• May 22, 2008

  11:39 p.m.

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  ColoradoDave writes:

  Gene asks: "I would love to see an unbiased comparison of Ms. De La Cruz's job vs. an exact similar jog at a non-union hotel. Exact comparison of health insurance, pension, union dues, etc. What does a union worker actually get for the money."

  Some of the answers are given in the article itself.

  "Under a five-year contract that went into effect Sunday, she and 350 other employees at the downtown hotel now have a pension plan, lower health costs and other benefits, such as a reduced workload for housekeepers."

  "For workers such as De La Cruz, the contract means a decrease in the number of rooms she must clean each day to 18 from as many as 25 or 30."

  "In addition to getting annual wage increases, Hyatt Regency Denver employees will begin paying less for health care coverage in coming months."

  Oh wait these are all biased statements because we all know "the facts have a liberal bias."

• June 5, 2008

  2:08 p.m.

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  mwalkerco writes:

  WOW! Less than 2 weeks and today I saw picketers with a large sign in front of our newly-unionized Hyatt hotel. What the heck is up with that? Are they ALREADY unhappy with unionization? Go figure...