For immediate release
August 7, 2007
Leonard O'Neill
(831) 375-2246, cell: 595-2499
Carmel Mission Inn Workers Approve Labor Contract
All union hotels now under contract except Monterey Bay Travelodge
Carmel, CA. UNITEHERE! Local 483 members at the Carmel Mission Inn approved on Monday, August 6, the thirteenth Monterey Bay hotel labor agreement in a Union contract negotiation campaign that began thirteen months ago. The workers approved the contract on a 95% vote. The new agreement covers 40 Carmel Mission Inn workers—housekeepers, front desk, maintenance, and restaurant workers. Following the standards of the previous UNITEHERE-negotiated contracts, the agreement calls for a $2.55 per hour increase in wages over the course of three years. The terms also include a signing bonus, the maintenance of the employee health insurance plan, and pension increases.
Five-year Carmel Mission Inn housekeeper and mother of two, Fabiola Dorado, said, “This is a very good agreement. It will help me raise my family with good wages and benefits.”
Leonard O’Neill, Local 483 Secretary-Treasurer and lead negotiator, commented: “This contract was worth the long wait. In less than a year, Carmel Mission Inn workers will earn $1.30 more per hour.”
The Carmel Mission Inn contract brings to a total of some 1,600 hospitality workers covered by new agreements negotiated by Local 483 and Monterey Bay hotels, since the first signed deal at the Hyatt Regency in August 2006. The list of hotels under new Union contracts includes the Hyatt Regency, Hilton Garden Inn, Monterey Beach and Bay Park hotels in Monterey, the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, the Lodge at Pebble Beach, the Highlands Inn, Quail Lodge, La Playa Hotel, Pine Inn, Tally-Ho Inn, and now Carmel Mission Inn in the Carmel area, as well as the University Inn & Conference Center Inn and Coast Santa Cruz Hotel. Of the 16 Union hotels in the Monterey Bay area, only the Monterey Bay Travelodge, under a national UNITEHERE and AFL-CIO boycott since 2004, is currently operating with an expired contract.
The Carmel Mission Inn is owned and operated by the PVI Hotel Group out of Belmont.
Founded in 1937, UNITEHERE! Local 483 represents more than 1,600 Monterey Bay area hospitality workers at two dozen hotels, restaurants, cafeterias, and golf courses.
For more information, please see www.unitehere483.org.