Convention & Visitors Bureau Kicks Out Unruly Union

​Since its labor contract expired in August 2009, hotel workers' union Unite Here Local 2 has spent months waving signs in hotel-visitors' faces and generally causing a ruckus (this is, after all, how labor actions work) in its efforts to win a new labor contract.

Tired of this crap, this week the Convention and Visitors Bureau -- the arm of the Chamber of Commerce charged with promoting San Francisco to visitors -- summarily ejected the labor union from membership, the SF Business Times reported today.

This is the first time the Conventions Bureau has taken the drastic measure of giving a member union the boot. But far from a behavior-changing wake-up call, the action appears to have emboldened the hotel workers, who will continue to ask visitors to boycott eight San Francisco hotels.


Calls to the San Francisco Labor Council and to the Visitors and Convention Bureau by SF Weekly were not immediately returned.

While bureau officials insisted that the dismissal has nothing to do with the union's labor actions, it's patently hard to see otherwise. It's certainly bad for business when hotel guests have to cross a picket line on their way to the hotel pool, and worse when labor leaders contacted potential convention guests to tell them they'd be fucked with if they visited before a new contract was ratified.

Either way, this move appears to have little impact on the ground. Union officials told the Business Times that their picketing would continue, with or without membership in the local boosters' club.