UNITE-HERE announced today that it has succeeded in its efforts to organize employees of the Convention Center Hyatt hotel downtown, and that today Hyatt management
officially recognized the union.
Link thanks to
Dan Slater, who has this to say:
This is obviously HUGE news for the bid to bring the Democratic National Convention to Denver in 2008. From the DNC's perspective, the biggest problem with Denver has always been the lack of a unionized hotel. The Hyatt Regency has always been proposed to be the Convention headquarters hotel if the Convention comes to Denver. This news means that the Convention headquarters hotel will, in fact, be a union hotel.
I have been suspicious that this was going to happen ever since the Denver Area Labor Federation dropped its opposition to holding the 2008 DNC in Denver. I suspect the union used the prospect of bringing the convention to Denver as a carrot to help organize the Hyatt.
Of course, there remain other downtown Denver hotels that are not organized, but the Hyatt win gives UNITE-HERE momentum that it can use to try to organize other downtown hotels. In any event, the fact that union organizing efforts in the downtown Denver market are succeeding should remove that particular point of opposition to Denver's 2008 DNC bid.
(Slightly different versions posted at MyDD and SquareState.)