Billionaire Donors Split With Obama On Law That May Hurt Hotels
Penny Pritzker, Obamas campaign finance chairwoman and a director of Global Hyatt Corp., has told the president she is opposed to the measure, known as card check, said a person familiar with the situation. Neil Bluhm, a partner in Walton Street Capital LLC, also opposes the bill, the person said. Lester Crown, chairman of Henry Crown & Co., criticized the proposal in an interview.
For the citys business leaders who nurtured Obamas White House bid, card check is a gut check on support for their hometown president. Labor, which spent $100 million on Democratic campaigns last year, made it a top priority to enact a bill giving workers bargaining rights based on signing cards instead of winning a secret-ballot election.
Voting privately is “an American prerogative and shouldnt be overturned,” said Crown, 83, whose family holdings include the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa in Ojai, California, and the Little Nell hotel in Aspen, Colorado. “The recommended legislation is absolutely the wrong thing to do.”
Pritzker, 49, and Bluhm, 71, declined to comment.
The fight over proposed labor-law revisions heated up this week when Senator Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who is the chief sponsor of the card-check provision, said backers dont have the votes to push it through. He vowed to press ahead with other elements that unions want, such as shortening the time period allowed for elections.
Labor Law Imbalance
“Many do feel there is an imbalance” in current laws that favors business over labor, he said in an interview. A compromise version may attract support from more lawmakers, Harkin said.
Under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, employers can demand an election even if more than half of workers sign cards supporting a union. The bill would take away that right, and opponents say it would leave employees open to retaliation if they refuse to sign up.
Since the 1980s, management campaigns have defeated 19 of every 20 organizing efforts, according to Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at University of California at Santa Barbara.
While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to spend about $20 million this year on advertising and lobbying to block card check, labor leaders said they are determined to get a filibuster-proof margin in the Senate.
Pressuring Specter
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said his chamber may consider the issue before the August recess.
Richard Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, threatened to withhold labor backing for Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter in his 2010 re-election campaign if he doesnt vote for the bill. “We wont be bludgeoned into supporting him just because important people, like the president, are,” Trumka said of Specter, who switched to the Democratic Party last month from the Republicans.
Unions represent about 7.6 percent of the private-sector workforce, down from 35 percent at their peak in the 1950s, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Heat on Hotels
The outcome of the debate may affect the hotel interests of Crown, Pritzker and Bluhm.
Bluhms investments include the Drake, Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons hotels, all clustered near Chicagos North Michigan Avenue shopping district. He joined the Pritzkers in developing two casinos in Niagara Falls, Canada. Pritzker runs her familys realty group, airport shuttle service and credit checking company.
“Labor-law reform gets right into the face of these liberals who own a factory or a hotel,” where the card-check provision would have its greatest impact, said Lichtenstein, the historian.