Peter Palandjian is chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. and a producer and executive producer of “Union Town,” a documentary film.
For more than two weeks, roughly 1,300 workers at Encore Boston Harbor, the large casino that dominates Everett’s skyline, have been on strike, disrupting operations at one of Greater Boston’s largest hospitality and entertainment employers. They are seeking higher wages and stronger protections for health care, benefits, and job security.
These are the housekeepers, cooks, bartenders, servers, slot attendants, warehouse workers, drivers, and other employees whose labor makes Encore function. Represented by UNITE HERE Local 26 and Teamsters Local 25, they are not peripheral to the business. They are the people who create the experience Encore sells.
I know something about both sides of that equation. My company, Intercontinental Real Estate Corp., develops and owns unionized hotels in Boston, Chicago, and Minneapolis, builds with union labor, and manages capital for Taft-Hartley pension and health and welfare funds, as well as public pension funds serving teachers, firefighters, and police officers across the country. In Boston, we own the 427-room Hampton Inn and Homewood Suites by Hilton in the Seaport District, and we developed and formerly owned the Nine Zero Hotel.
For decades, we have been entrusted to manage retirement and benefit capital on behalf of working people. That experience has taught me that labor negotiations are never merely about contract language: They affect people’s paychecks, health care, retirement security, and ability to provide for their families.
So my respect for organized labor isn’t theoretical.
Collective bargaining can be difficult. Management and labor have different interests and won’t always agree. But disagreement is precisely why we have a bargaining table.
Encore Boston Harbor and its owner, Wynn Resorts, should listen more sympathetically to the people who make Encore successful and work with their unions with a genuine determination to reach an agreement.
I say that as a capitalist. I believe deeply in private enterprise, investment, entrepreneurship, and profit. Businesses need to make money, investors are entitled to appropriate returns, and companies must be able to compete and grow.
But capitalism works best when the people whose labor contributes to that success have a meaningful voice in determining the conditions under which they work.
An individual housekeeper, cook, warehouse worker, limo driver, valet attendant, or cashier has very little bargaining power when sitting across from a large corporation. Collective bargaining changes that equation. It gives workers the ability to negotiate together over the value of their labor and the conditions of their employment.
I’ve been thinking a great deal about these questions because for the past several years I have been producing and funding “Union Town,” a new documentary directed by Barbara Kopple, which recently had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
Fifty years ago, Kopple made “Harlan County, USA,” her Academy Award-winning film about Kentucky coal miners fighting for a union contract. She later made “American Dream,” about workers confronting enormous economic pressure in a changing American economy.
I approached Kopple with the idea of returning to labor because I believed the American workplace was again undergoing a profound transformation. “Union Town” follows workers at UPS and Amazon and app-based delivery workers on the streets of New York.
The industries and technology have changed. But the fundamental question Kopple has been asking for half a century hasn’t: Who has power, who doesn’t, and what becomes possible when working people stand together?
Making “Union Town” has reinforced something I have also learned over decades in business: Management and labor do not have to regard each other as enemies. Management has legitimate interests. So does labor.
Encore has said that labor costs have been rising faster than revenues and that any agreement must be financially sustainable and protect jobs over the long term. Those concerns deserve to be taken seriously.
But the workers’ concerns deserve the same seriousness. They need to support their families, afford health care, plan for retirement, and have reasonable confidence in the security of their jobs. And when their labor helps create a successful enterprise, they understandably want to participate appropriately in that success.
A hotel can have a magnificent building, beautiful rooms, extraordinary restaurants, and every imaginable amenity. But hospitality is ultimately delivered by people — the housekeeper preparing a room, the cook preparing a meal, the server…