UNION STUNNER
Ward stepping down as head of hotel labor group as virus cripples biz
Peter Ward, one of the city's most powerful union leaders, is stepping down as president of the Hotel Trades Council — a move sure to send shock waves through the city's political firmament.
Ward's resignation comes amid what's possibly the most turbulent time in the union's 81-year history with hotels decimated by the coronavirus pandemic and scores of hotel workers out of work and facing grave uncertainty.
Gov. Cuomo said Ward has “fulfilled the promise of the labor movement” for helping change working people's lives for the better.
“I'm going to miss him,” Cuomo said. “It's a great loss for the labor movement. He is an extraordinary talent.”
Ward, 62, joined the 35,000member strong union 41 years ago as a dues clerk making $120 a week and quickly rose through the ranks. He went on to orchestrate strikes against Tavern on the Green and the Rainbow Room, negotiated higher pay for workers and strengthened the union's health care operation, transforming it into a national model with several stand-alone health care centers around the city.
He and the union are also well known for their close ties to Mayor de Blasio, whom the union endorsed in his failed presidential bid.
Ward, who grew up in Marine Park, Brooklyn, told the Daily News in an interview this week he had intended to announce his resignation earlier this year on St. Patrick's Day, but the coronavirus cut the plan short.
“I could never leave in good conscience under that set of circumstances,” he said. “Now we're five months into it. I think everyone has a clear understanding of the difficulties ahead and how long this is likely to go on for, and I think the union is well-positioned to survive this.”
The union and the hotel industry it relies on are still facing a dire situation, though.
Overdevelopment of hotels during the past decade has left the industry in an even weaker position to weather the COVID-induced financial crisis, which Ward believes will lead to bankruptcies, foreclosures and court battles.
His biggest regret is failing to fully push through a special permitting process to slow hotel development. He credited de Blasio, who's faced pressure to build more from developers and the construction industry, for making progress on curbing development, but said it ultimately wasn't enough to avoid the current glut of hotels.
“The industry has so badly overbuilt itself that they've destroyed the goose that laid the golden egg,” he said. “They've created a situation now where many of them will not survive
this crisis because they are just simply overbuilt.”
Ward also has plenty of successes to look back on, though, as both he and his admirers can attest.
He improved his members’ health care plan by placing an emphasis on preventive care and customer service that made doctors’ visits less cumbersome. The union’s membership rose from 22,000 to more than 35,000 during his time as president. And he beefed up the union’s political operation and negotiated what are roundly acknowledged as strong contracts, boosting member wages and improving benefits.
“He had a vision and effectuated it,” said Doug Muzzio, a political science professor at Baruch College. “He created a model of the modern union.”
Ward started working for the Hotel Trades Council after the death of his mother, a Catholic social worker who served public housing residents, and after he dropped out of Sheepshead Bay High School when he was 16.
“My mother was the center of our life,” he told The News. “That shaped so much of who I was back then. I think I was lost, and I think I fell in between the cracks. I failed myself and the system failed me, and I wound up not finishing.”
Ward took his first job with the union in 1979 and soon got involved in an organizing drive at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, where workers were displeased with the union and working conditions. The drive ended in contract negotiations that gave the workers wage increases in what Ward described as “a whopper of a contract.”
“Being involved in that process was infectious to me,” he said. “I just fell in love with being at the union. I felt like the union was giving me a chance to get a second bite at life.”
But he only really started to cut his teeth years later, in 1985 during a 30-day, citywide hotel workers strike. The resulting contract was a mixed bag, but it prepared Ward for a later standoff when workers at Tavern on the Green were seeking to become a part of the union and went on strike.
The strike lasted 10 weeks and forced him to not only keep up morale among workers surviving on union relief, but to organize other workers to support them and to clearly communicate a message about conditions at the high-end restaurant.
In the end, through a bitter negotiation, Ward got the contract he wanted.
But even those who sat across the bargaining table from him have offered scant public criticism, likely out of both fear and respect.
Vijay Dandapani, president of the Hotel Association of New York City, the industry group that represents hotel owners, acknowledged Ward is a hard bargainer, but said he’s also mindful of how maintaining the health of the industry ultimately benefits his membership.
“He was not rigid,” Dandapani said. “He managed to walk this tightrope. He realized the collective well-being of the industry is also important.”
On Wednesday morning, Ward will inform the union’s board of his decision to leave and plans to recommend that Rich Maroko, its general counsel, succeed him as its new head.
As the union’s president, Ward earned more than $500,000 a year. After his resignation, he said he plans to serve as a part-time adviser to the union, freeing him up to spend more time with his grandchildren and to pursue work as a consultant.
“There’s an old saying in baseball. Better to trade the guy a year too early than a year too late,” he said. “I think this is the most responsible thing I can be doing at this stage of the game.”