Omni hopes training city workers will improveimage

By Sheela V. Pai

LIZ OLINER/YH Eighty-five New Haven residents recently graduated from the Omni Hotel's new training program

The hotel designed Career TEAM with the specific purpose of training and hiring New Haven residents for positions at the Omni. Many of the new employees had been referred to Omni by the New Haven Enterprise Community, which had been encouraging the Omni to employ local workers.

Many of Career TEAM's graduates come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Forty-six of the 85 trainees had been on government assistance before entering the program. Job opportunities for such graduates include positions in the hotel security department and switchboard operators.

Omni general manager Linda Libby hopes that Career TEAM's high graduate rate will finally prove to protesters that Omni is committed to investing in and assisting city residents, and that the hotel "keeps its promises."

She said that as of Fri., Feb. 20, 154 of the hotel's 203 employees, or 75 percent of its workforce, were from New Haven. This percentage is much higher than the 35 percent hiring minimum that Omni had agreed to as part of its financing contract with the city.

Libby rejected criticisms that the Omni takes advantage of its employees by preventing their signing a union card. Instead, she said that the Omni Corporation aims to play an integral role in the redevelopment of New Haven's job market. "[Omni] wants to be a good corporate citizen; we don't move into a community to take advantage of its people," she said. "We want to help and make a difference."

Katie Unger, BR '98, coordinator of the Yale Student Labor Action Coalition, supports Omni's training and employment efforts, but believes that Omni must take further steps to protect its workers.

Unger said that a neutrality agreement "would give workers a say in how work happens in the Omni--that they're not arbitrarily firing or hiring people." Currently, employees must vote by secret ballot for unionization.

Libby claims that Omni supports the secret ballot option because their employees "are intelligent, capable adults who can make decisions, but they need to take time to get to know their managers." She stated that signing a union card so that it automatically becomes a ballot does not allow employees to make an informed choice.

Unger insisted, though, that union carding allows employees time to get to know their workplace and that "when employees sign a card, Omni should respect that."

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