I thought it would be useful to pass on this letter by Phillip Gaspar that “Brian Leiter just posted”:http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2005/03/possible_change.html.
bq.. Dear Colleague:
The American Philosophical Association is currently considering moving its Pacific Division meeting, scheduled for the end of this month, from the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco, to a hotel in San Jose, because of a continuing labor dispute.
The Westin St. Francis is one of a group of San Francisco hotels that has been involved in a dispute over a new contract with its employees since last August. Hotel profit margins have increased in recent years, but management wants to cut health care benefits and grant only minimal wage increases that will not keep up with inflation. In the fall, the hotels locked out their workers for several weeks and threatened to cancel their health benefits, only relenting after considerable public pressure and direct intervention by San Francisco’s mayor, Gavin Newsom. Nonetheless, by the time the lockout ended, many hotel workers had already received eviction and foreclosure notices. Since then, negotiations with the union representing the hotel workers, UNITE HERE Local 2, have stalled.
In the face of management intransigence, Local 2 has called for the public to boycott all hotels involved in the dispute, including the Westin St. Francis. In response, several conferences and meetings have been moved from San Francisco to other locations in recent weeks, including the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians. Not only is the boycott still likely to be in place by the time of the APA meeting but according to the union, the labor situation is unstable and could deteriorate further. Our meeting could therefore very possibly be disrupted. (For more information on the labor dispute see “http://www.unitehere2.org/”:http://www.unitehere2.org/ and “http://www.hotelworkersunited.org/”:http://www.hotelworkersunited.org/.)
If the APA Pacific Division meeting is held at the Westin St. Francis as scheduled, it is likely that a significant number of people due to participate in or planning to attend the conference, will feel duty-bound to honor the union boycott and cancel their appearances.
Some APA members will also feel an obligation to join union informational pickets outside the hotel calling on others to respect the boycott. If the meeting goes ahead at the St. Francis it is therefore likely that the program will be much weaker than planned and the outcome will be divisive.
While there are certainly logistical difficulties in moving the meeting at this late date, the APA is currently engaged in negotiations with the Fairmont hotel in San Jose, which may be prepared to pay the conference cancellation fee at the St. Francis.
It is almost as easy to get to San Jose from the San Francisco and Oakland airports, as it is to get to San Francisco. Hotel reservations at the St. Francis can still be canceled with no penalty. Some people may already have made non-refundable reservations at other hotels in San Francisco, but it may be possible for the APA to consider setting up a fund to compensate people in this situation if the meeting is moved, particularly graduate students.
If the APA is able to move the meeting venue to San Jose, we will not only be able to honor the union boycott, but we will be much more likely to have a successful conference than if we remain in San Francisco. The Pacific Division is currently contacting people on the conference program to see whether they would support a move. If you agree that we should move the meeting, please contact the APA Pacific Division officers and the APA executive director as soon as possible to let them know this. Their email addresses are listed below.
Please forward this message to others who you know will be attending the APA Pacific Division meeting. (Apologies to anyone who receives this more than once.)
Sincerely,
Phil Gasper
Professor of Philosophy
Notre Dame de Namur University
Belmont, CA 94002
apa_execdirector at UDel.Edu
dreyfus at cogsci.berkeley.edu
jeffrie.murphy at asu.edu
jannas at u.arizona.edu
asilvers at sfsu.edu
normore at humnet.ucla.edu
sgoering at u.washington.edu
mejubien at ucdavis.edu
ndsmith at lclark.edu
dom.lopes at ubc.ca