From a press release:
- Meeting Professionals International (MPI), The American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership (ASAE) and the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) have issued the following joint statement regarding labor disputes in some US cities.
Meetings and conventions are a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide which bring a positive economic impact to the economy and generate millions of jobs throughout the United States. Meeting Professionals International (MPI), The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) are concerned with the current labor disputes affecting hotels and their union employees in some US cities. We are encouraging both sides to negotiate in good faith to reach agreements that are most appropriate for each city in order to maintain a healthy meetings industry overall. We support local negotiations that attempt to maintain the industry's worker's good wages and benefits and provide for the economic viability of hotels.
We do not, however, condone the tactics being used by the UNITE HERE (Hotel Employees Restaurant Employees) union that involve contacting meeting planners directly and asking them to boycott particular hotels either involved in ongoing labor negotiations or not at all involved but affiliated with certain major chains. As associations for the meetings industry, we condemn any effort to cause widespread disruption of the meetings business, which may cause great injury to the economic stability of the targeted cities as well as the economic livelihood of the hotel employees at the targeted properties.
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