No progress in Faculty Club discussions

With less than four months until the Faculty Club moves from Skinner Hall at 36th and Walnut streets to the new Inn at Penn this summer, the fate of the 35 workers currently employed at the facility is still undetermined. At the latest in a series of contract negotiations yesterday over whether the current employees will be rehired, both University officials and leaders from the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local 274 -- which represents Faculty Club employees -- agreed that nothing was accomplished. "They vented at me for about 45 minutes or so, same as they did last time," Penn Associate General Counsel Eric Tilles said of the "uneventful" meeting. And Union President Patrick Coughlan noted that the meeting was "unproductive." Negotiations between the University and union officials have been plagued by insults and arguments since last July, when the University announced its intention to outsource the Faculty Club to DoubleTree Hotels. University officials have said they will not be able to directly employ current Faculty Club workers in the new facility because it will be managed by DoubleTree -- a division of the Promus Hotel Corporation -- and not Penn. But in January, DoubleTree added a guarantee to hire 70 percent of all full-time Faculty Club employees who apply for positions with the company, although that offer has still not been issued in writing. Tilles said he hopes to receive something in writing from DoubleTree in the next few days. And union officials have still not responded to a severance package offered by the University in October which included a 3 percent pay increase for non-tipped employees, an increased union pension and one week of severance pay for each full year of service. Union officials also requested information last week about the hours of operation and scope of service at the new Faculty Club. "The information we requested wasn't available so there was nothing we could do," Coughlan said. Tilles responded, saying, "We told the union that the Faculty Club Board of Governors wasn't meeting until March 3. If he was expecting that information now, he shouldn't have been." The two parties agreed to meet again after the Board of Governors has made a decision on the questions raised by Coughlan. "When they get us the information, we will then arrange a meeting," Coughlan said.

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