Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 29, 1992 TAG: 9202290201
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY BUSINESS EDITOR
DATELINE: HOT SPRINGS LENGTH: Medium
HOMESTEAD TO GET HEARING ON UNION
The National Labor Relations Board said Friday it will hold a hearing next week on whether a union should represent housekeepers at the Homestead.The hearing, scheduled for Thursday at 10 a.m. at the Bath County Courthouse in Warm Springs, concerns a petition by the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Local 863 for a representation election for 125 employees - including maids, room attendants, housemen, inspectors and upholsterers - at the Homestead and its nearby Cascades Inn.
The hearing, by an examiner from the in Winston-Salem, N.C., regional office, will be on the appropriate size of the voting unit. Greg Robertson, attorney for the hotel, said he was investigating whether the housekeeping department fits NLRB rules as an appropriate unit to vote on union representation. After deciding that issue, the NLRB will decide whether to hold an election, Robertson said.
The union lost two earlier elections at the hotel, in 1979 and in 1983, he said.
The hotel's management contends the union petition is illegal because "the housekeeping department is heavily integrated with every other department and it is not a separate entity," said Steve Harrison, resident manager.
"We don't feel that the union is needed here. They are trying to divide our staff," Harrison said.
The organizing campaign among more than 1,000 Homestead employees began last summer. The same union represents employees at the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
The NLRB's regional office has ruled against the union's charge that the hotel management fired two employees in December for union activity. The union has appealed to the NLRB in Washington.