Labor Protest at Disneyland Hotel Is Focus of Union Organizing Effort

Pickets outside Anaheim’s Disneyland Hotel, where nearly 1,200 union members have been without a contract since Feb. 28, are trying to win support for a boycott of the hotel. But union and hotel industry experts agree that more is at stake than a single collective-bargaining agreement.

The labor protest is the first Southern California salvo in the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union’s national organizing project, with Orange County--and its dizzying pace of new hotel construction--as one focal point.

“Orange County was picked as an area where we knew the hotel industry was strong and getting stronger and here to stay and where we had local unions with a good track record,” said Bill Granfield, a union organizer.

Although Disneyland Hotel officials said the boycott is having little impact, it prompted one prominent traveler to change his plans. Vice President George Bush canceled his scheduled overnight stay there Sunday to avoid “getting in the middle” of the labor dispute, a spokesman for Rep. Robert Dornan (R-Garden Grove) said. Bush, however, will be crossing a picket line to attend a fund-raiser for the congressman at the hotel Sunday night, the spokesman said.

Hotel a Union Shop

The Disneyland Hotel might not seem a likely target because it has been a union shop since it opened in 1956, but officials of the union’s Long Beach-based Local 681 say that any significant gains there can only help the organizing effort.

Yet the local’s March 1 contract deadline passed without a strike.

“Hey, the hotel was ready to replace all of us the day after the contract expired,” said Jim McDevitt, a bellman for 30 years. “What would we have gained? Nothing, except losing our jobs.”

Hotel spokesman Ric Morris accused the union of trying to use its members, most of them Latinos, as pawns in a high-stakes game.

“The reason they can’t strike is they can’t get 200 people to go out and strike,” he said. “But they are using negotiations here to help create a foothold in the union’s campaign to organize at other hotels. With six outside organizers sent here by the international union to direct the strike, we can’t help but believe they think it is very important to make an example of our hotel.”

Orange County is experiencing luxury hotel development at what industry experts call a “one-a-month” pace. The boom includes the $100-million Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel and Newport Beach’s ultramodern $65-million Meridien and $70-million Four Seasons.

Already 150 hotels with more than 32,000 rooms compete in the county’s Anaheim core, anchored by such tourist attractions as Disneyland in Anaheim and Knott’s Berry Farm in neighboring Buena Park.

32 More Hotels Planned

At least 32 more hotels are scheduled for construction within two years, which could mean another 5,000 to 7,000 rooms.

The crush of new hotels has created a “highly competitive” market, said David R. Kinkade, a consultant at the Costa Mesa office of Laventhol & Horwath, an accounting firm. He said Orange County’s average daily occupancy rate has slid from 71.4% in 1983 to “several” percentage points below 1984’s 66.7%.

To remain competitive, industry experts say, services ranging from the smile of a friendly waitress to the fine china in a hotel restaurant must be assessed and, if needed, enhanced. To do that, they say, labor costs must be kept in check.

But Disneyland Hotel’s attorney, Joseph E. Herman, acknowledged that “it’s not impossible to run a fine hotel with union representation and make a profit.”

Only four major Anaheim hotels are unionized: the Disneyland Hotel, the Anaheim Hilton and Towers, the Grand and the Inn at the Park.

“We offer employees free meals, free parking and a full benefits package, more so than a lot of unions,” said Mary McGuire, personnel director of the non-union Emerald of Anaheim.

McGuire and others noted that the larger hotels, which can hire personnel professionals to help quell employee dissatisfaction, are not as vulnerable to union organizers as hotels with fewer than 200 rooms.

Owned by the Beverly Hills-based Wrather Corp., which operates the Queen Mary and Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose attractions in Long Beach, the Disneyland Hotel boasts a four-star rating by Mobil Corp. Despite its overnight rate of $158 for a double room, it enjoys an almost 90% occupancy rate.

1,124-Room Mini-City

Situated next door to Disneyland and near Anaheim’s Convention Center, the hotel has grown into a 1,124-room mini-city with a man-made marina, outdoor cafes and free live shows during the summer tourist season.

But union officials say employees there and at other hotels in Orange County are paid less than their counterparts in other cities around the country.

“Here you have basically poor, Spanish-speaking maids whose families are living in crime-ridden neighborhoods, who have worked for years making the Disneyland Hotel what it is today, but who are barely getting $4 an hour,” said Granfield, who who cut his organizing teeth with Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers.

Added Steven Beyer, another union official: “Yet, they have to pay $7 for a hamburger at lunch or $5 for an English muffin and coffee.”

Long Beach-based Local 681--one of the international union’s four locals in Southern California--has 5,000 members working at hotels in Long Beach and Orange County. The international union’s national organizing project also includes Chicago, Boston, Washington and New Haven, Conn.

The labor trouble at the Disneyland Hotel escalated when members began demonstrating March 1 after turning down a contract calling for wage increases averaging 28.5% over four years.

Proposed Pact

The proposed pact included no pay hikes for food service employees, but raises of up to 30 cents an hour for other employees. Top hourly wages are $3.90 for waitresses and busboys, $4.90 for maids and more than $6 for cooks. The union is asking for raises ranging from 30 to 60 cents an hour.

Tensions have flared during picketing at the hotel, which relies heavily on conventions and tourism, and at its executives’ homes since the union began promoting a boycott. The boycott is an effort to force management back to the bargaining table, union officials said, but it has had little, if any, impact, according to hotel officials.

Last month, the union received a boost when the United Farm Workers’ Chavez spoke in support of the boycott after joining pickets.

Chavez’s visit was a special treat for Engracia Gabaldon, a 14-year employee of the hotel who earns $5.46 an hour working in the pantry.

“Look,” she said excitedly, “he autographed this piece of paper. And I kissed him many times.”