EDITORIAL: A time to sign on the dotted line

Penn's new offer for Faculty Club workers is fair - now the union must do the right thing and sign. But the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees union -- which represents 35 Faculty Club workers -- has yet to respond to the proposal. Indeed, the union has not responded to any offers from Penn in the six months since the last collective bargaining agreement ended in June. The ongoing failure to engage in negotiations is troubling enough. But now, with a package that meets the needs of Club employees on the table, continued intransigence would be counterproductive and detrimental to the workers whose interests the union claims to represent. We agree that, to the extent possible, DoubleTree should employ current Club workers. We agree that educational subsidies and severance pay should be in line with those offered to workers affected by previous outsourcings. But all of these conditions have been met. Recent years have not been kind to the union. Several of Philadelphia's newer hotels are non-union shops and membership is down. Standing firm against the purported evils of management may seem like an attractive option for a union struggling to maintain relevance. But we trust -- as do the workers represented by the union -- that such considerations are not on the minds of union leaders as they work to reach a deal that is good, first and foremost, for the Club's unionized workers. We expect that local president Pat Coughlin and his fellow union leaders will do the right thing for their members and take Penn up on her offer.