Big Temporary Networks

Tue Sep 18 22:14:37 UTC 2012

NOTE: None of the following content can be typed into your router. It holds information only slightly relevant to networking.

On Sep 18, 2012, at 1:47 PM, William Herrin wrote:
>> That has been true everywhere that Worldcon has been for a
>> number of years, excluding Japan.  Hotel union contracts
>> generally forbid activity being done by any non-union people,
>> even if they are the guests.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law
> 
> ''A "right-to-work" law is a statute that prohibits union security
> agreements, or agreements between labor unions and employers that
> govern the extent to which an established union can require employees'
> membership [...] as a condition of employment. Right-to-work laws
> exist in twenty-three U.S. states,''

Well, Bill, this starts the legal dance equivalent of "patches accepted", that being "you are welcome to sue against this with your own money".

Not being aware of which states have this law, it's entirely possible that the intersection between states that have this law and states which have enough scifi fans willing to get together to host a worldcon is negligible. I can only recall ~9 states which have hosted a worldcon in the last 30 years. Checking the easily found references pages seems to confirm this although I didn't bother checking extensively.

I'm closely associated and personal friends with people who have done the hotel negotiations for four of the recent worldcons, and on a first name basis with most of the others, and this union requirement has been a major problem with most if not all of them. Just getting a waiver to allow people to serve drinks in their own hotel rooms has been hard enough to break many bids. It is currently impossible in San Francisco due to hotel contracts, and part of why Worldcon will never return to San Francisco unless very unlikely changes happen.

-- 
Jo Rhett
Net Consonance : net philanthropy to improve open source and internet projects.