ORLANDO-Seeking a guaranteed 40-hour week on a new three-year contract, 400 members of Teamsters Local 385 who work at the Swan and Dolphin hotels at Walt Disney World are pinning their hopes tomorrow on a federal mediator who begins hearing their complaints.
If the guaranteed work-week clause isn't part of the contract, the workers have told the hotels' management they will strike. If they do, management expects to fill their positions immediately from 48,000 unemployed Orlando workers including 4,000 from the hospitality industry, consulting sources following the dispute tell GlobeSt.com.
“It's a lose-lose situation for the workers this time around, I'm afraid,” an independent hotel industry consultant tells GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity.
The workers make between the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour and $12 per hour, depending on their individual skills.
The 400 Teamster workers represent 20% of the total work force at the two $375 million hotels, built in 1989 and 1990 and jointly owned by New York-based Tishman Hotel & Realty Corp. and Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide of White Plains, NY manages the properties.
The workers-management confrontation comes as Tishman-Metropolitan is investing a combined $75 million to increase total indoor meeting space at the two hotels to 329,000 sf from 250,000 sf.
The expansion will allow the Swan-Dolphin to compete with the nearby Nashville, TN-owned Gaylord Palms, the 1,406-room, $450 million hotel that opened nearby on Feb. 2 with 400,000 sf of meeting area, Orlando hospitality consultants tell GlobeSt.com.
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