I did not grow up in a union family. That's no surprise to you, since if I had I'd probably have known what crossing the picket line even meant when I was a young adult. Ahem.
I was extremely fortunate in my early career. I was given opportunities to develop skills, to travel, to not only become a leader myself but to develop leadership skills in others. I was also given the opportunity to understand first-hand how valuable unions are not only to their members, but to all of us. And I learned those lessons not as a union worker but as a manager.
Today the chances are that I would not be given the opportunity learn those same lessons. And the impact of that loss of understanding the totality of relationships within an organization would reverberate throughout my life and throughout my work. That would have been quite the loss, not only for me but for the organizations I have impacted.
We all benefit when workers unite. Even we managers. And that's not a new view, a California new age hippie view, or a liberal view. It's just reality.
B&B innkeepers, for instance, can thank unions for most of their guests. Why? Because most B&Bs serve the vast majority of their guests on weekends. Without unions, many of those guests would still be toiling away. Without unions, we would have no weekend as we know it now. How many B&Bs anywhere could survive without those weekend guests? How many would have ever opened their doors to begin with?
I have been deeply saddened to see the union-busting mentality of the lodging industry grow and fester over the last few years. Along with that growing yet foolhardy resentment of workers who take their jobs seriously enough to want to band together, extreme views and actions become the norm.
These days we hear stories of worker abuse that should make any caring person's hair stand on end.
Firing housekeepers making $15 an hour to replace them with contract housekeepers making $8? If you think that makes sense - or that anyone in America should do backbreaking work for those kind of wages - then we probably don't agree on the level of quality and commitment that any inn should seek in its employees.
Remember, too, that while those workers may be only receiving $8, there's also an enormous cost in agency fees along with those workers. Not to mention the cost of employee turnover itself, which most of the bean counters who espouse such bad policies tend to ignore altogether.
And anyone who thinks it's okay for any housekeeper anywhere to clean thirty rooms a day, should really consider a new profession.
I hear there may be some salt mines looking for some good overseers.
Will guests boycott the fat cats over the abuse of their workers? Many will. At the very least, the PR debacle does nothing to promote relaxation at an inn that should be an oasis in itself. Why would anyone trust that a general manager who abuses her workers cares about her guests? Why would any traveler want to be a part of that debate at all?
And the karma that's going to come out of that? I just don't think it's going to end well. And I don't think it's going to end up saving any hotelier anywhere a single dime in the long run.
