City pressured to look at wages for workers at expected inns

By KEVIN COURTNEY
Register Staff Writer

Organized labor may be standing in the wings, hoping to unionize the employees of Napa’s new wave of upscale hotels.

Representatives of Unite Here, which represents workers at major hotels in the Bay Area, asked the Napa City Council this week to scrutinize wages and benefits before approving additional hotels.

Local officials should make sure Napa isn’t getting mostly low-wage jobs, burdening social services, affordable housing and local roads if new hires commute from areas with cheaper housing, said Owen Li, a research analyst with Unite Here.

In an interview, Li said it was “a possibility” that Unite Here, which represents hotel and other service workers nationally, might try to organize Napa’s non-union hotel work force.

Councilwoman Juliana Inman, who had talked to Li before the council meeting, was more certain. “It’s a union organizing effort,” she said of Unite Here’s council appearance.

Now that Napa is attracting larger, more luxurious hotels capable of paying higher wages, it has caught the attention of his union, Li said.

The new hotels include a proposed Kimpton at the site of the Chateau hotel on Solano Avenue, a Westin that is finishing construction on McKinstry Street, a Ritz-Carlton proposed for Silverado Trail and an Avia rising on First Street. A St. Regis hotel is reportedly looking at a south Napa location.

The issue before the City Council Tuesday was adoption of a revised lodging and hotel development policy to guide approval of new projects.

In 2000, the city said its highest priority was the attraction of full-service and resort hotels downtown as a way of supporting restaurants and shopping. Hotels would be encouraged to provide meeting space to support mid-week group demand.

Among the suggested new guidelines, hotels would be asked to provide a comprehensive report on employment, including wages, benefits, commute patterns and any programs to aid housing and traffic management. Until now, such information was generally not required.

In addition, hotels would have to show how they would promote shuttles and other mass transit options for guests and employees and career training programs.

Martin J. Bennett, a policy analyst with Unite Here, said hotel jobs often do not pay enough to keep a family out of poverty.

Citing a 2005 study, “The Limits of Prosperity: Growth, Inequality and Poverty in the North Bay,” Bennett said a couple with two young children each needed to earn $15.11 per hour to live in Napa County.

In fact, nearly 60 percent of the new jobs created in Napa between 2001 and 2008 paid less than $12, Bennett said.

Representatives of Unite Here asked that hotel applicants be required to hire independent consultants to analyze their pay policies and community impacts.

Council members agreed that consultants should be independent, but declined to incorporate the union’s list of questions into the city’s policy statement.

Councilwoman Inman said afterward that the city clearly needs more hotels. Because the demand now exceeds the supply, “we’re losing a lot of revenue,” she said.

At the same time, the city needs to make sure that hotel pay standards aren’t creating social service and traffic problems, Inman said.

Cassandra Walker, the city’s economic development manager, said the city needs to analyze employment demographics more broadly.

Hotels generally pay more than vineyard or retail jobs, yet until now no one has proposed that the city scrutinize these industries, she said in an interview.

Walker said the Meritage Resort retained a consultant to analyze the impacts of the 164-room expansion approved by the Planning Commission two weeks ago.

That report found that the average wage of a full-time worker at Meritage would be $32,500, which is higher than the Napa County and state hotel average of $26,000.

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