Michael Otsuka sent me the following message that I wanted to circulate more widely (with his permission). He refers to a letter of Phil Gaspar’s that has been circulating and which I’ve repasted below the fold.
bq. I’m sure that a number of those who plan to attend the APA meeting in San Francisco would like to know whether they will need to cross a picket line to do so. Phil Gasper has recently circulated an email in which he says that there certainly will be a picket line during the meeting. The email from the APA Pacific committee (which you posted on your web page on March 9) says, by contrast, that there will not be a picket line (unless the dispute between the union and hotel management escalates between now and the end of March). As far as I can tell, these contrasting claims rest on a disagreement as to what constitutes a picket line. I believe that the APA committee understands a picket line to be the line that workers would form, would not cross, and would request others not to cross, if they went on strike. (They are not on strike at the moment.) I believe that Gasper, by contrast, also includes picketing by union members in the absence of a strike as an instance of a picket line. Such picketing would presumably occur at the same time that other union members were inside the hotel and working. Gasper believes that one or the other form of picketing will certainly occur during the meeting.
I agree with Michael, and I think both the union and Professor Gaspar are being less than perfectly clear with their terminology. In my idiolect, as I’m sure in many others, _picket line_ is a term with a quite definite meaning, namely a line that the union declares all supporters should not cross. Unless the situation deteriorates, there won’t be such a line at the Westin, because the workers will still be working there. (If there were a picket line in my sense, there couldn’t possibly be union workers inside the line.) So while I support the boycott, and won’t be staying at the Westin or buying anything from them, I don’t believe that the _don’t cross picket lines_ rule prevents one attending the conference.
Professor Gaspar’s letter below the fold.
bq.. Dear Colleague:
I am writing to you again to pass on two letters. The first [the text of which has been pasted in below] is signed by numerous hotel workers (members of UNITE HERE Local 2) in support of the boycott of the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. They call on philosophers to “Stand for Justice!” and to honor the boycott.
The second letter (appended below) is from the APA Pacific Division Executive Committee explaining their reasons for deciding to keep the Pacific Division Meeting at the boycotted hotel and not to move it elsewhere. You may already have received a copy of this letter, but you also may not, since it apparently did not go out to all conference participants. I was not sent the letter directly by the Executive Committee, but only received a copy third hand yesterday morning.
The Executive Committee letter contains some comments that are inaccurate or misleading.
(1) According to Local 2’s boycott coordinator, the hotel boycott has been in effect since the workers were locked out last October. It was not “adopted after the cooling-off period ended in January ’05.”
(2) The message I sent out about the situation last Saturday did not (unfortunately) go to all conference participants, but only to about two-thirds of the people listed on the combined main and group programs, because I did not have email addresses for everyone. It is possible that hundreds of people scheduled to appear, not to mention participants not on the program, still do not know that the hotel is under union boycott.
(3) I did not suggest that the Pacific Division “sign a new contract with the St. Francis for meetings in 2007 and 2009 because, by giving the hotel two future years of business, we might be permitted to cancel this year’s meeting with a reduced financial penalty.” My suggestion was that the Executive Committee should raise the issue of future business with the hotel as a negotiating point with the St. Francis. It would obviously not be very sensible to sign a new contract with the hotel on the mere hope that they might then reduce their cancellation fee if this year’s meeting were moved.
(4) It is not true that “There are no picket lines at the San Francisco hotels.” As the attached letter from the hotel workers makes clear, “our union pickets these [boycotted] hotels regularly.” For a news report on a recent picket at the St. Francis see “here”:http://www2.cbs5.com/localwire/localfsnews/bcn/2005/02/14/n/HeadlineNews/PICKET/resources_bcn_html. If the Pacific Division Meeting remains at the St. Francis, Local 2 will certainly set up picket lines for all or part of the event, and (as I noted in my earlier message) some APA members will feel obligated to join the pickets. (If you want more information about joining the picket lines, please contact me.)
(5) According to the Executive Committee letter, “participants who wish to boycott individually may attend the papers without purchasing anything from the hotel and with assurance that the hotel does not receive revenue from this meeting space use.” However, Local 2 is calling on the public not to use the facilities at boycotted hotels in any way. It was in order to clarify this issue that I contacted the union in the first place.
I appreciate the difficult position the Executive Committee has found itself in. Clearly no decision at this point will satisfy everybody. However, I think it was a serious mistake not to alert the conference participants (and probably the APA membership more generally) about the hotel boycott at least two months ago. That would have enabled some people to keep their travel plans more flexible (for example, by not booking non-refundable hotel accommodation in San Francisco) and allowed at least some time for deliberation and discussion by the membership about what to do. Instead, most people on the program only learned about the situation when I sent my email out less than a week ago.
I also don’t understand why the Executive Committee decided to solicit the views of only ten percent of people on the main program, rather than everyone scheduled to appear at the event and/or pre-registered. Before they decided to move their meetings from boycotted hotels in San Francisco, the American Anthropological Association and the Organization of American Historians sought input from their entire memberships. Even given their self-imposed time constraints, the Pacific Division Executive Committee could have done the same. If you think that your views on this issue have not been properly taken into account, you should contact the members of the Executive Committee and let them know this.
The hotel workers are still calling on the Pacific Division to move its meeting. Local 2’s boycott coordinator tells me that other conferences have successfully moved in less time than is still available to us, and that the union is eager to help facilitate alternative arrangements.
Finally, these are obviously issues that should be taken up at the next Pacific Division Business Meeting. However, if the meeting goes ahead at the St. Francis, those of us who will honor the union boycott will be unable to attend.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Phil Gasper
Professor of Philosophy
Notre Dame de Namur University
Belmont , CA 94002
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Statement from UNITE HERE Local 2 hotel workers:
*Philosophers: Stand for Justice!*
We, the undersigned hotel workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 2 in San Francisco, need your support. We have been negotiating with hotel employers for eight months, fighting for better wages, affordable health care, and a respectful relationship now and in the future. In the fall, the St Francis and 13 other Multi-Employer Group Hotels denied us access from our jobs, locked us out, trying to starve us into accepting a bad contract. All of this has happened at a time when hotel profits and occupancy rates are at a three year high and continue to climb.
The American Philosophical Association is planning on holding your annual convention in our city at the Westin St Francis. The union has been contacted by concerned attendees and panelists who say that they will not help the boycotted hotel. Furthermore, our union pickets these hotels regularly. For these reasons alone, your group would be well served to move your convention to unaffected hotel in the city.
You have an opportunity to help us in our struggle by sending a message to our employers. When you move your meeting from our boycotted hotels, you get us one step closer to settling this labor dispute. When groups move their meetings, it shows our employers that our struggle extends beyond our union, and that groups like yours do believe in justice. All of this means that the American Philosophical Association has the chance to play instrumental role in ending these bitter contract negotiations. On behalf of all San Francisco hotel workers and our families, please stand in solidarity with us and move your convention out of the St Francis and into a non-boycotted hotel.