“I have been going around the country and celebrating first contracts,” Secretary of Labor Julie Su said during an interview Thursday, before speaking to Culinary members gathered at the Palazzo. “Especially in places where workers have been engaged in long struggles for a voice on the job, for better working conditions, for some of what President Biden calls breathing room in their lives.”
Considering the protracted battle between the hotels’ former ownership and the union, Su praised the speed with which AGM and the Culinary negotiated a four-year contract after the union and management reached a card-check neutrality agreement in July.
“It should not take more than a year to negotiate a first contract. If it does we’ve got problems, and oftentimes that delay is used to punish workers for choosing to join a union, and we should not allow that to happen,” she said, adding she’s challenged employers and unions to reach initial agreements within a year..”This certainly fits the spirit of that, although this has been a decades-long battle for the workers themselves, and I’m here to acknowledge and honor that as well.”