Originally published on Leatherati: http://www.leatherati.com/leatherati/2011/01/iml-board-and-vendors-harassed.html
IML Board and Vendors Harassed
Tynan Fox, reporting
Jon Krongaard, Executive Committee member and Operations Coordinator of the event Mr. International Leather, states that the hotel worker's union UNITE-HERE Local 1 has been harassing and stalking members of the leather community.
“UNITE-HERE has been working without a contract with many hotels in the city of Chicago for quite some time. They have decided to target Hyatt in particular, because Hyatt’s corporation is headquartered in Chicago,” said Krongaard. IML has been dragged into the mess as a result.
IML has a contact with the Hyatt which would cost $900,000 in fees and penalties if IML decided to take the event elsewhere in 2011. Nonetheless, Krongaard did state that after IML 2010, the executive board was looking for other venues for the 2011 event. “Hyatt was prepared to let us walk away friends. There were problems on both sides of the table there. But after searching the rest of the city for venues, we didn’t find anything that could accomidate us like the Hyatt Regency. The decision was made to stay with the Hyatt for 2011 and work out some mutual agreements.”
However, the trouble began in December 2010 in a meeting at the IML executive office. The president of UNITE-HERE, Harry Tamarin, and six of his associates were present with three executive committee members of IML. “The union asked us to leave the Hyatt, five months before our event. That’s outrageous,” said Krongaard. “They wanted this in order to put pressure on the Hyatt to play ball the way the union wants them to.”
The executive committee explained that there was a contract which would cost $900,000 to get out of. The union responded, “You should have come to us first, when you were looking to get out of the Hyatt. We could have moved your event across several hotels or even out into the suburbs, and put your market in multiple locations.” With that, the meeting ended abruptly.
Krongaard states there has been no direct communication with the union since this meeting, but states the indirect communication is what could be classified as harassment. “The union’s staff has been spending a lot of time performing public record searches, both paid and unpaid, for vendors and titleholders in the community. They have located both business and work phone numbers and addresses, and are mailing vendors and title holders letters, and in some cases calling them at home, asking them to boycott IML.”
The union’s motives are to create a public concern that IML is being anti-union, and to subsequently motivate IML to leave the Hyatt. Their methods of communication are most concerning. Voice-mails have been left in vendors’ and titleholders’ places of business, and in some cases their homes stating blatant affiliations with international Mr. Leather.
Krongaard likens this to a leather-outing in some cases. “Phone calls leaving a message saying, ‘I’d like to speak to such-and-such Mr. Leather’, in potentially public voicemail boxes, without any consideration to that individuals privacy is disgusting and mentally unhinged, showing a complete and utter lack of discretion and respect for their private life. This is stalking.”
Naturally, IML will not be threatened. “IML will be at the Hyatt Regency on Memorial Day weekend in 2011. Period,” says Krongaard. “The IML exec board is incredibly sympathetic to the union and their negotiation, and we are sincerely hopeful that they can reach a contract that all sides will honor and uphold. However, IML and our community will not be bullied, coerced, threatened, or manipulated in the fashion that is currently being undertaken by the union.”
IML asks that if the public has questions or if anyone receives information, personal calls, or other unwanted communication from the union to forward this and any details surrounding it directly to info@imrl.com.
UNITE-HERE Local 1 President Henry Tamarin could not be reached for comment.