September 07, 2012
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The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday granted the National Labor Relations Board’s petition for enforcement of a 2011 decision against owners of a luxury Waikiki hotel, and affirmed an injunctive order against the hotel by a federal district court, also issued in 2011.
The NLRB’s case against the HTH Corporation and the Pacific Beach Hotel dates back to a union organizing drive in 2002, and has involved numerous federal court appearances, two injunctions and a contempt order, in addition to the NLRB processes.
“Two themes repeat themselves in the decade-long history of this dispute,” the court wrote in its decision. “The first is HTH’s defiance of the Labor Act and its employees’ statutory rights. The second is HTH’s consistent losses before the agency and the courts. A skeptical adjudicator might question whether HTH has ever taken seriously its obligations under the law. We hope that we do not need to consider that question again.”
Previous NLRB press releases, here, here, here and here, chronicle the evolution of the case, which began when Local 142 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) sought to organize hotel employees. The union eventually won recognition. The Board found that the hotel committed numerous violations of federal labor law, including illegally dismissing employees for their union activity, engaging in bad faith bargaining and illegally withdrawing recognition of the union, and failing to bargain for a contract.
In addition to the remedies normally ordered, the Board ordered HTH to reimburse the union for its bargaining costs, to read a Board-prepared notice to employees during their work hours, and to bargain in good faith with the Union for an additional year. The NLRB petitioned the 9th Circuit for enforcement. For its part, the hotel filed a petition for review of the Board decision and appealed the issuance of the second injunction.
