For a little over a month the locked-out hotel workers have been picketing at the Hyatt Regency next door to my office. They are marching when I arrive in the morning and when I leave at night. They bang on noisemakers and chant loudly to hotel guests and passers-by: “Don’t check in…Check out!”
It’s easy to sympathize with the workers’ desire to keep a lid on their health insurance premiums, but the costs of running a San Francisco hotel are escalating and occupancy rates are down. At room rates exceeding $200 per night, the hotels are still hemorrhaging money. Mayor Gavin Newsome tried to impose a 90-day cooling-off period but, when his efforts failed, he joined the picket line.
The Mayor has not impressed this humble observer. Tall, handsome, rich, with an impressive San Francisco pedigree and accomplished attractive wife, higher office seems foreordained. But, earlier this year, he could not resist grabbing the headlines by throwing open the doors of City Hall to same-sex marriages. Outspoken advocacy and lobbying is one thing, it’s another to flout the law knowingly while bearing the responsibility for its enforcement.
Besides the obvious detriment caused by the reduction in well-heeled visitors, the strike/lockout also hurts the City by communicating that it’s poorly run. Surely a Gavin with gravitas could have sat the parties down and brokered a compromise without trashing either side in public, as one learns in Negotiations 101. But grandstanding is soo gratifying. Meanwhile, it's Day 42 and counting...
It's puzzling why signs on this street have been marked up. Why cause trouble here? Don't you know that we're with you, bro?
No comments:
Post a Comment