Unite Here, the union that represents hotel workers, launched an organization that provides information on union-friendly hotels, labor disputes, and other issues that could affect site selection.

The Informed Meetings Exchange has more than 100 subscribers representing $200 million in annual hotel expenditures, according to a press release. The subscriber list is on the INMEX Web site, www.inmex.org, and includes organizations such as the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Democratic Governors Association, and the Organization of American Historians.

Subscribers could decide where to spend convention and meeting dollars based on INMEX research, which includes detailed information on the relationship that hotels and their chains have with labor, said John Stephens, executive director of the American Studies Association and board chairman of INMEX.

“We want to insure that our money is spent in a way that is consistent with our organizational values and priorities,” said Julian Bond, chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in a news release.

Union News from New York

This year, hotel worker contracts are up in six major destinations, including those of 26 Chicago hotels on August 31 and 15 Boston hotels on November 30.

On June 30, contracts expired at 11 hotels in Hawaii and more than 100 in New York. Negotiations were ongoing in Hawaii as of mid-July; New York hotels had ratified a tentative six-year contract with the New York Hotel Trades Council, a group of nine unions representing 23,000 employees, according to a news release from the Hotel Association of New York.

The new contract, which offers wage increases and better benefits, covers more than 100 hotels in New York, but does not include two major hotels owned by Hilton Hotel Corp. At press time, the city's Hilton properties had extended negotiations through July.

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