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Four Points to Hold "Card Check" Election

By Jorge Casuso

July 28 -- The Kor Group and the local union on Monday announced an agreement to hold a "card check" election at the Sheraton Four Points Hotel, ending a brief public unionizing drive that kicked off four months ago.

The 314-room hotel follows in the footsteps of the Kor-owned Viceroy, which became the city's second unionized hotel in November 2000 after a similar Card Check Neutrality Agreement. The union also signed a similar agreement with the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel last December and expects an election soon.

Under the latest agreement, Four Points management will remain neutral while workers decide whether to sign union authorization cards recognizing the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union Local 11 (HERE) as their representative. In turn, the union has pledged to stop all marching, picketing and demonstrations against the hotel.

Union officials are confident that a "card check" election -- which requires hotel management to remain silent on the matter -- will guarantee victory at both the Four Points and the Loews.

"In both places, we're going to get a very strong majority," said Craig Petersen, an organizer for the union. "When they sign a card check agreement, it means
they don't want to fight anymore.

"These fights are getting shorter," Petersen said, noting that the stalemate with Loews lasted two and a half years. "The message is getting out that eventually we're going to win, so they're trying to make it work for them as well as their workers."

HERE officials vowed to work with the Kor Group to implement the agreement and build a mutually beneficial partnership.

The agreement, said Local 11 President Maria Elena Durazo, is "a sign that labor and progressive organizations like the Kor Group can find common ground when it comes to improving the lives of working families."

Kor Group Senior Vice President, Kate Bartolo welcomed the prospect of "cementing a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership" with the union.

"At the end of the day, it goes back to the issue of being partners," Bartolo said. "It will be very beneficial to the company… Together, there is much that we can do to make our two Santa Monica hotels the area's finest."

The agreement comes four months after more than 200 demonstrators marched to the Four Points to denounce the disparity in pay, benefits and job security for non-unionized workers at the hotel and their unionized colleagues at the Viceroy four blocks away.

Formerly the Pacific Shore Hotel, the Viceroy, which sits on City-owned land, became Santa Monica's second unionized hotel in November 2000 after the City Council included an unusual clause in its lease mandating that Kor remain neutral in any union organizing drive.

The agreement marked a new era for the local union, which fought throughout the late 1990s to hold on to the Miramar Sheraton, for nearly half a century Santa Monica's only unionized hotel.

The battle at the Miramar ended in April 2000 with the new owners of the Fairmont Miramar Hotel signing an unprecedented five-year contract that ended a bitter labor battle that had lasted just as long.

In a matter of months, workers at the Viceroy overwhelmingly voted in favor of a union, and less than three years later, the Loews and Four Points could be poised to follow suit.

"With this card check we now have 50 percent of the rooms covered by card check or union contract. Our goal is 100 percent," Petersen said. "It's a long way from almost being thrown out of Santa Monica."

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