After Blackstone Group announced its surprise $20 billion acquisition of Hilton Hotels  on July 3, it took just 89 minutes for UNITE HERE, a hotel workers union, to unequivocally endorse the deal. That’s 89 minutes to evaluate the proposal, come to a conclusion, put a release together, and distribute it. That’s a pretty fast turnaround. Moreover, it was a pretty bold statement.
    “We welcome this combination,” said Bruce Raynor, UNITE HERE’s general president. “This combination is good news for the workers.”
    “For the thousands of housekeepers, bellpersons, banquet staff, waiters and waitresses affected by this transaction, we are encouraged that two responsible actors are coming together,” chimed in John Wilhelm, UNITE HERE’s president for the hospitality industry.
    Unusual. No hint of caution for the prospective owners and no saber-rattling about the need to ensure workers rights amid the billions of dollars changing hands. And this strident labor support is for a deal involving Blackstone, which faced resistance from the AFL-CIO to its recent initial public offering.
    Unusual too, because UNITE HERE, an aggressive union, hasn’t always had the smoothest relations with Hilton.
    Two days after its endorsement of the deal, a grievance related to an employee’s firing at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton filed by UNITE HERE was thrown out by the National Labor Relations Board. The incident drew harsh words from the hotel’s management.
    “This is just another example of UNITE HERE local 11 ignoring fact and truth in their effort to bully our employees and this hotel,” said Grant Coonley, general manager at the LAX Hilton.
    In June, UNITE HERE said workers at a Hilton in Glendale, California, were escalating their campaign against the hotel’s owner Eagle Hospitality Properties Trust <EHP.N> by declaring a boycott of the Eagle-owned Embassy Suites — a Hilton chain — in Boston. 
    It was the ninth hotel that the workers called to boycott in a long-running dispute about what the union calls poverty wages, lack of affordable health insurance, and dangerous working conditions.
    In August 2006, union workers at six Chicago hotels run by Hilton authorized UNITE HERE to strike as labor contracts were due to expire.
    Also, UNITE HERE has faced allegations from its own rank and file. Grant Suzuki, an electrician at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Hotel, in May filed charges against the union after the union failed to disclose certain financial expenditures.
    “UNITE-HERE union officials are undermining the rights of the very employees they claim to represent,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation, a group that is representing Suzuki.
    On the other hand, UNITE HERE has wrapped up numerous labor contracts involving Hilton hotels, and last July, it and Hilton agreed on a deal that eased the hotel operator’s stance on union organization. The union also says it has had good relations with Blackstone, which also owns more than 100,000 hotel rooms including the La Quinta chain.
    “Normally, we’d have to talk to people in a situation like this to understand the directions and the implications, but in this case, because we know both companies quite well and have very good relations with both, so we were enthusiastic as soon as we heard about it,” said UNITE HERE’s Wilhelm.
    The union also didn’t get any head start on investors and the rest of us. “We heard about it that afternoon,” he said.
    
    (Reported and written by Chris Reiter)