In 2009, Hilton Worldwide ranked as the third largest hotel chain in the U.S. based on the number of guest rooms. This is according to the annual survey of the Top U.S. Hotel Companies conducted by Hotel & Motel Management.

The Wyndham Hotel Group held the number one spot with 464,660 rooms and 5,968 US properties. Marriott International held second place.

dded 174 hotels and 23,567 rooms to its U.S. inventory to jump to first place as the largest U.S. hotel chain, pushing Wyndham and Marriott down to second and third. The 2010 survey shows Hilton with 481,829 rooms in the United States and a worldwide total of 597,211 rooms at 3,626 properties.

No other hotel chain grew as fast as the Hilton in 2010.

Starwood Hotels and Resorts remained at seventh place and Hyatt Hotels remained at 10th place in both the 2009 and 2010 survey. Hyatt added 46 properties and 7,793 rooms to its U.S. inventory, while Starwood expanded outside of the United States. Most of the Hilton and Hyatt hotels are in the U.S.—81 percent of Hilton’s rooms and 72 percent of Hyatt’s rooms are in the U.S.

Starwood is more equally divided with 48.6 percent of its rooms in the U.S. and 51.4 percent outside of the U.S.

You can see the full survey at: http://images.questex.com/ HMM/2010/HMM_Surveys/ hmm092010_tophotelco.pdf.

The three hotels chains, Hilton, Starwood, and Hyatt, own or manage seven hotels with ILWU contracts and employ close to 4,000 ILWU members.

Hilton operates or manages two of the largest ILWU hotels—the Grand Wailea Resort on Maui and the Hilton Waikoloa Village on the Big Island.

Hyatt operates the Hyatt Regency Maui and the Grand Hyatt Kauai.

Starwood manages the Westin Maui, the St. Regis Princeville Resort on Kauai, and the Sheraton Keauhou Bay Resort on the Big Island.

ILWU and UNITE HERE Local 5 solidarity agreement—continued from page 1

to build mutual cooperation and assistance and promote interunion solidarity in dealing with their common employers—mainly the Hilton, Starwood, and Hyatt hotel chains. The unions will share and consult on contract proposals and keep each other informed about the status and terms of bargaining with their common employers. Each union will still retain complete control over how they negotiate and the settlement they may reach with the hotels. The Agreement will run until both unions complete their negotiations, but either union has the right to terminate the Agreement if there are problems.

Each union may also invite the other union to attend negotiation sessions with the employers. Hilton and Hyatt management were caught by surprise when ILWU Local 142 President Isaac Fiesta, Jr. attended some of Local 5’s meetings with management and Local 5 Financial SecretaryTreasurer Eric Gill attended one of ILWU’s meetings with Hyatt management. Management got the clear message that both unions stood united.

In Hawaii, the agreement means the ILWU Local 142 and UNITE HERE Local 5 will build a new relationship based on cooperation, mutual respect, and unity. In the past, the ILWU and Local 5 were often rivals as both unions competed to organize new hotels. Both unions would criticize the other union, pointing out the flaws in their contracts and internal affairs. The agreement is intended to put an end to this rivalry and build a new spirit of unity between the two unions and Hawaii hotel workers.

Waikiki negotiating now UNITE HERE 
Local 5 labor agreements with most of the major Waikiki hotels expired on June 30, 2010, and the union is currently negotiating with hotel management on the terms of new agreements. Local 5 has about 9,000 hotel members in Hawaii, most of whom work in Hilton, Starwood, or Hyatt hotels in Waikiki. Local 5 wants the hotels to put more money into the workers’ pension and medical funds, while hotel management wants to hold costs down and make up for losses during the 2008-2009 recession. Local 5 h

UNITE HERE Local 5 members rally on the beach fronting the Hilton Hawaiian Villageon November 16.Theywere joinsbyhundredsof supporters, including the ILWU and union representatives who were attending a convention of the International Foundation of Benefit Plans.

Local 5 held a one-day strike on September 2 at the Hyatt Waikiki and a five-day strike at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki from October 14-19, protesting “Hilton’s efforts to lock workers into cheap recession contracts.” The ILWU supported the Hyatt Waikiki workers by joining the pickets and leafleting ILWU members at the Hyatt Regency Maui and Grand Hyatt Kauai. ILWU members on Oahu joined the pickets at the Hilton Waikiki. 

UNITE HERE members also struck Hilton Hotels in San Francisco and Chicago, where 8,000 workers in Chicago have been working without a contract since August 2009.

Hilton Worldwide is now owned by one of Wall Street’s largest private equity firms—the Blackstone Group. In negotiations with UNITE HERE, Hilton management has proposed increasing family health care costs by hundreds of dollars a month, freezing pensions, reducing staffing, and increasing workloads. One management proposal would increase housekeepers workload from 14 rooms to 20 rooms a day.

ILWU Local 142 has about 10,000 members working in Neighbor Island hotels. ILWU contracts with hotels owned or managed by Hyatt, Hilton, and Starwood still have two or three years before they expire, and the ILWU will not be negotiating new contracts at these hotels until 2012 and 2013. However, under the solidarity agreement, UNITE HERE Local 5 will help the ILWU as needed.

ILWU and UNITE HERE 
Local 5’s parent union, UNITE HERE, has roughly 240,000 members in the United States and Canada. About 100,000 of these members work in 900 hotels and the other 140,000 members work in casinos, laundries, catering and cafeteria operations at airports, universities, hospitals, stadiums, amusement parks, and other institutions.

Local 142’s parent union, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has about 42,000 members in Hawaii, California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. Another 3,000 workers are members of the ILWU, Canada. Outside of Hawaii, ILWU members work mainly in the longshore and warehouse industry. In Hawaii, the ILWU represents workers in almost every industry.