Disneyland Hotel Workers May Walk Out at Midnight

About 1,200 hotel workers, more than half of whom work at Disneyland Hotel, may strike at midnight tonight if efforts to to reach an agreement with management fail, a union spokesman said Thursday.

A decision affecting maids, food servers, cooks and other workers represented by the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees International Union could be made today after the union’s negotiating team reviews management’s final offer, said Bill Granfield, a union spokesman.

Ric Morris, personnel and labor relations director for the 1,124-room Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim, said he still held out hope that an agreement could be reached today to avert a strike, which, in the words of one union official, could “cripple the hotel.”

However, Morris said the hotel is prepared to weather any labor emergency and has made contingency plans to bring in outside workers.

‘Always Be Prepared’

“It’s been my motto that you should always be prepared. Then you can be pleasantly surprised if you’re wrong,” he said.

A candlelight vigil is scheduled for union members tonight at 8 in front of the hotel on Cerritos Street. The union’s three-year contract expires at midnight.

A strike could have a devastating effect if picket lines are honored by the rest of the 2,000 hotel workers, most of whom are represented by five unions.

The last strike at the hotel was in September, 1985, when 17 landscapers represented by Laborers International Union Local 652 walked off their jobs in a wage dispute for about six weeks.

The protest caused loss of revenue to the hotel when a seminar co-sponsored by some industrial relations groups, including the National Labor Relations Board, was canceled after many of the 400 participants refused to either cross the picket line or remain in the hotel with a picket outside.

Petitions Delivered

A wage dispute in 1978 at the hotel prompted an 11-day walkout by service employees.

On Thursday, about 30 union members hand-delivered petitions to the Beverly Hills offices of the Wrather Corp., which owns and operates the hotel. The petitions asked for a good contract and were signed by hundreds of hotel workers.

Granfield said the hotel wants the union to agree to a contract clause that would pay employees the same wage rate as other, smaller hotels where the union is the bargaining agent.

“It’s a snake in the grass clause that the company is trying to sneak by us,” Granfield said. “We’re talking about the Disneyland Hotel, a four-star-rated hotel that is in proximity to Disneyland whose operators are making a mint.”

Granfield said the management offer also does not include a pay increase for food service employees, who now receive about $3.90 an hour.

‘A Very Fine Offer’

Housekeepers and maids who receive about $4.35 an hour would get an additional 20 cents an hour. The hotel’s highest-paid workers, such as cooks, would receive 30 cents more an hour.

Morris declined to discuss the hotel’s latest offer.

“We’ve made them a very fine offer, especially when you consider other union offers in the area,” he said.

“We have some very fine employees; given that, I’m hoping that common sense will prevail,” Morris said.

Recently, the hotel’s firing of an outspoken Mexican maid, who lost seniority and vacation time after becoming a legal resident alien, also sparked a union protest.