Labor Disputes a Cause for Concern

BY MID-OCTOBER labor disputes had caused a lockout at 14 San Francisco hotels and a strike watch at another 23 hotels in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., while negotiators haggled over wages, health insurance costs, pensions, and contract expiration dates. With the national hotel union, Unite Here, encouraging workers to hold out for better benefits and a two-year contract, hotel management continued to deliver service, using nonunion workers where necessary.