It looks like the little guys are going to be in trouble again: City Councilwoman Julie Menin just made a deal with the big hotels to buy off their opposition to her union giveaway “Safe Hotels Act.”
She added some exceptions to the bill to appease the Hotel Association of New York City, which represents major corporations; smaller hotels, mainly those in the suburbs and hotels with significant minority ownership, continue to receive support.
The big winner is the politically powerful Hotel and Gaming Trade Council – which will have the power to unionize (or close down) the part of the industry where it doesn’t yet have a union.
Hotels that are not union stores are not eligible for a city permit, and without a permit they must close — or become emergency shelters.
A bit of choice, eh?
The NYC Minority Hotel Association – formed to oppose this bill – will not have the traction to derail it unless suburban council members wake up and defend their constituents.
To be clear, the “safeguards” in the bill are just the excuse for the special interest giveaway: the mandates for panic buttons, etc. are trivial.
No: the whole point is to either make the independents bend the knee (and raise rates, if they can survive that way) or close down, at the cost of thousands of jobs.
Room rates across the city will rise, further affecting tourism.
Anyway, the union wins, as does Menen, who is looking for a higher position and is willing to sacrifice as many small people as necessary to get the support of the HGTC.
We bet the big hotels will regret throwing the small ones to the wolves: the next time the union demands new scalps, it will be theirs.
