Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Court Upholds Management Deal With Union On Hotel Operations
Court Upholds Management Deal With Union On Hotel Operations
n an important decision upholding the right of hotels to make pragmatic agreements with unions on hotel operations, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed a claim brought by banquet servers at the St. Regis New York who had claimed that assigning certain banquet-like events to restaurant waitstaff and room service servers violated
their contract rights. In granting dismissal, the court upheld the right of hotels and unions to reach private, special purpose agreements allocating work opportunities to different job classifications without fear that disfavored employee groups could sue for breach of the underlying labor agreement.
BACKGROUND
The lawsuit arose from the hotels practice of using room-service servers (rather than banquet servers) for certain private meetings held in hotel guest rooms that were temporarily converted to meeting room space. The hotel had also previouslyreached an agreement with the union that restaurant wait staff could serve all private parties held in the hotels signature restaurant. A group of union-represented banquet servers demanded that the union file a grievance on their behalf against both practices claiming that they, effectively, created a separate, second banquet department and deprived them of the right to work all banquet events a right they claimed had been granted by both the labor agreement and by a prior settlement agreement resolving certain past grievances. After the union failed to file the grievance requested, the banquet servers brought a claim against both the union and the hotel under a provision for federal labor law that allows individual unionrepresented employees to sue in federal court over alleged violations of the labor agreement governing their employment. The banquet servers alleged that the hotel violated their rights under the applicable labor agreements and conspired with the union to deprive them of work opportunities.