Crain's Chicago Business 

Henry Tamarin is the never-ending negotiator. 

After spending the past several weeks cutting deals with owners and operators of 26 hotels in Chicago, the 61-year-old president of Unite Here Local 1 still has contracts to hammer out with food-service companies and independent hotel owners.

Next year, Mr. Tamarin will start negotiations for 3,400 food-service workers at Chicago Public Schools.

“I don’t think of the next job as a contract because (negotiating) is routine,” he said.

Instead, he views his job as one that increases wages and union membership, goals that have topped his to-do list since he arrived in Chicago in 1999. Back then, hotel housekeepers made $8.83 an hour, significantly less than their counterparts in New York.

Seven years and two labor contracts later, the wages are now $13.20 an hour and will hit $14.60 an hour in 2009.

“That begins to get our membership to the middle class,” he said. “I think we are moving towards an equity position for Chicago workers.”

Higher wages means hotel owners have to find ways to offset the cost, whether in increase room rates or cutting back on other expenses.

“A dollar isn’t just a dollar,” said Marc Whitefield, an attorney for Hyatt Hotels Corp. who worked on the contract negotiations. “When wage rates increase by $1, benefits, which are based on wages, go up too. It’s probably something like $1.50 or $1.60.”

While reaching new labor contracts was a challenge, Mr. Tamarin faces a larger task in organizing more hotels. In 1999, the union represented 30 Chicago hotels. It has added only two more despite the boom in the city’s hotel business.

“Chicago is still a union town, but I don’t think the labor union has done enough to make (itself) relevant,” he said.

Chicago’s unions used to be more powerful, but years of neglecting the needs of members has tarnished their effectiveness among workers, said Martin Malin, director of Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute for Law and the Workplace.

In addition, savvy corporate human resources departments can thwart unions by offering competitive wages and benefits, Mr. Malin said.

But when the wages aren’t there, Mr. Tamarin is. He helped secure the most recent pay hike for hotel employees after weeks of protracted negotiations with owners and operators of major Chicago hotels and on the heels of strike authorization approvals. The previous four-year contracts expired Aug. 31.

“We didn’t begin to sit down until the back end of July,” Mr. Tamarin said. “So, August was an intense period of negotiations and it was a challenge. There was definitely some midnight oil.”

Still, it was less challenging than in 2002, when union and hotel officials were called into former Gov. George Ryan’s office to avert a citywide strike.

Hilton Hotels Corp. was the first to reach a new three-year contract settlement with Unite Here Local 1. Contracts with the other owners and operators — Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Tishman Hotel Corp. and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. — soon followed.

While Mr. Tamarin was satisfied with increases in wage and benefits, he was particularly pleased with Hilton’s agreement to not oppose union organizing at any new hotels it opens in Chicago.

That is a key component to ensuring the longevity of the labor union, said Mr. Malin of IIT.

“The greater the percentage of the market that a union can organize, the easier it is to bargain,” he said. “The hotel industry is one place labor has made a stand. You can’t ship a housekeeping job to China.”

Besides improving wages, Mr. Tamarin continues to elevate the profile of Chicago’s unions since he landed in the city. The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 1 was saddled by accusations of financial wrongdoing and member neglect in 1999. So the union sent Mr. Tamarin, who started working for the labor organization in 1973 in New Haven, Conn., to turn things around.

He trimmed back on expenses, including cutting office salaries and perks and brought the union’s debt to under $1 million from the $1.5 million when he arrived in Chicago.

The union merged with Unite in 2004 in an effort to put more weight behind organizing service workers.

“I think we have come a long way, but we have a lot more work to do on organizing,” he said. “The union only works if people think it belongs to them.”