The AFL-CIO Boycott

"Unite Here, which represents hotel, restaurant and garment workers, is also on the verge of leaving the federation."

Here is a round-up of recent related stories.

And be sure to read coverage at the House of Labor blog.

This post by Rose Ann DeMoro on the reaction of the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee to the split struck me as particularly interesting.

Hotel union says no to new offer

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

A contract proposal that San Francisco hotel owners hoped would end an 11-month labor dispute was rejected Wednesday by the hotel workers union, whose president dismissed it as "cynical and disingenuous.''

The proposal from a group of 14 major hotels offered improvements in health and welfare benefits compared with the last proposal in January. But it also had an expiration date that the union said is unacceptable, and it reduced wage increases in an earlier offer by 25 cents per hour for non-tipped workers and 12 cents for tipped workers.

The offering came as a package and was automatically withdrawn when the union rejected it. Thus Local 2 of the hotel workers union and the negotiating group for the hotels are back where they started in August.

In addition, the rejection almost certainly means that several major conventions scheduled for San Francisco in 2006 will go elsewhere.