The head of the union seeking to represent hotel workers at the St. John Westin Resort has asked the National Labor Relations Board to drop his appeal for a new election to be held.
Luis "Tito" Morales, president of the United Steelworkers local for St. Thomas and St. John, said Wednesday that he made the decision earlier this month after "our legal counsel had advised us not to pursue it."
By a vote of 91-84 Westin workers rejected representation by Steelworkers. Morales immediately challenged 19 of the votes, which he said were cast by supervisors.
Morales said he has also asked the NLRB office in San Juan to withdraw about 18 complaints filed by individual Westin workers shortly after the balloting took place on the grounds of the resort in the first week of June.
The only complaint relating to the Westin that has not been withdrawn is one made by about 10 landscapers who were laid off together in February. In an earlier decision, the NLRB upheld the union contention that the 10 were part of the bargaining unit prior to getting their layoff notices.
After researching the labor practices of Westin's parent company, Morales said, he felt that the challenges would tie the union up in court for two to three years. "It's better off that we withdraw it than to get tied up in litigation," he said.
Pursuit of the individual complaints might have had similar results, he said. "They were based on the election," he noted, and all the NLRB could do is "order a new election." But the scheduling of such a vote could hang for months awaiting rulings on each individual complaint.
Rather than concentrate on challenging the election results, Morales said, he wants to focus on organizing a new unionization drive in a few months. "If we withdraw now, we can go back after a year from the time of the election and reorganize," he said.
At a meeting prior to the vote on June 1 and 2, a number of pro-union Westin workers told union leaders they had been subjected to intimidation and threats by resort management. At the time, Morales told them they had little recourse because the territory's wrongful discharge law was under review by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. A three-judge panel upheld the law in July, and the full circuit court recently rejected an appeal by local business organizations to revisit the decision.
St. John Westin general manager Greg Lundberg expressed surprise Wednesday at the union leader's decision. "I have not received any official notification one way or another," he said. "If that's what Tito would like to do, I'd certainly respect his wishes, because that's in my best interest." He added, "I hadn't really contemplated it, because I didn't really anticipate Tito backing off."
Following the June vote, Lundberg said he would await a ruling by the NLRB and comply with the wishes of the voting majority.