Swan-Dolphin Hotels Brace for Strike

"I can't talk for top management or the union, but I would be willing to bet everything I own those 400 workers won't walk out," an area hotel consultant intimate with the contract details tells GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity.

Hotel and union officials couldn't be reached at GlobeSt.com's publication deadline to learn what their contingency plans will be if the union calls a strike. Hotel management is expected to immediately hire replacements for any striking worker from a large pool of unemployed Orlando hotel workers, a Dolphin hotel staffer tells GlobeSt.com on condition of anonymity.

"Guests won't notice any disruption in service," the staffer says. The housekeeping staffs are Teamster members.

Teamsters represent 400 workers or 20% of the 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. White Plains, NY-based Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide 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 Feb. 2 with 400,000 sf of meeting area, Orlando hospitality consultants tell GlobeSt.com.

The 400 workers at the Swan-Dolphin make between $5.15 per hour, the federal minimum wage, and $12 per hour, depending on their individual skills. At Disney's 21 hotel properties totaling 22,000 rooms, the major union for the bulk of the park's 30,000 workers is hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Local 737. Disney has temporarily closed 3,000 rooms in five hotels since 9-11 because of low occupancy.

The last strike at a Disney property hotel, but not at a Disney-owned lodge, was at the independently owned Grosvenor Hotel in 1996. Sixty workers who picketed the Grosvenor were fired immediately and reinstated to their jobs by a federal judge in 1998.

The Central Florida unemployment rate in February was 5.5%, down from 6.3% in January but up from 2.9% in February 2001, according to the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation. About 48,000 individuals were looking for work in metro Orlando in February, the seventh straight month the area has lost jobs.