Ridpath Workers Ok New Contract Agreement Helps To Ensure Future Convention Business
After a change of hotel owners and two months of negotiations, unionized employees at Cavanaughs Ridpath Hotel have a new four-year labor contract.
The deal, approved by workers with a 64-3 vote, means the hotel will keep business, including a Washington State Labor Council five-day convention booking, that hinged on the Ridpath retaining a union staff.
The labor contract ended Dec. 31 when Dunson Ridpath Hotel Associates sold the Ridpath to Spokane-based Cavanaughs Hospitality Corp.
Cavanaughs couldn’t begin negotiations until after the sale closed. But discussions went smoothly, both parties say.
“We got an excellent contract out of them,” said John Workland, an officer of the Hotel and Restaurant Employee’s Union. “It’s pretty close to the same as the last one.”
He extolled on the pact’s excellent medical benefits, including dental, vision, life insurance and pay for time lost due to illness. Details of pay increases were not disclosed.
One bargaining issue in Workland’s favor was the threat of losing several major convention bookings if the hotel didn’t keep the union. The bookings include a meeting of the Washington Federation of State Employees scheduled in June, the Washington State Labor Convention in August and the Governor’s Industrial Safety and Health Conference in October.
“And there’s a great deal more incidental business that comes to the area,” said John Taffin, Cavanaughs’ VP of hotel operations. “We’ll have people stay one or two nights (at the Ridpath because it’s union) when they’re in town on business.”
He said that since Cavanaughs rehired most of the union employees when it took over the hotel, it was legally obligated to negotiate the contract.
This now makes the Ridpath the only union hotel in town.
The Doubletree downtown formerly had a union staff, but that contract expired Jan. 31 and employees asked that the union be decertified.
“The Doubletree’s management received an unsolicited petition to decertify the union, signed by an overwhelming majority (of the bargaining unit),” said hotel General Manager Lynn Ericksen.
The union then filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board charging that hotel management was involved in getting employees to support the petition.
“We are responding to that complaint,” said Ericksen. “We believe it is frivolous and unfounded.” The company, he said, was responding to the request of the employees. “We are compelled by law to honor their request.”
Of 250 Doubletree staffers, between 120 and 140 people, mostly in housekeeping, engineering and food and beverage service, were represented by the bargaining unit. , DataTimes