Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, Local 6 (now affiliated with the international union, UNITE/HERE) represents housekeeping staff, waiters, bartenders and other categories of service employees in hotel, private clubs and restaurants in the New York City area. The local grew substantially as a result of a major organizing drive in the mid-1930s, under Local president Michael J. Obermeier, and absorbed a number of smaller locals of hotel employees over the years. Significant gains came in 1938, with the signing of the first city-wide contract for hotel employees in many crafts and unions; the contract was negotiated by the newly formed umbrella group of hotel unions, the New York City Hotel Trades Council, headed by Jay Rubin. The HTC has continued to negotiate with the united employers (organized in the New York Hotel Association) on behalf of many categories of hotel employees. The Local is ethnically diverse, and has always included a high proportion of Latino workers.
From the guide to the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, Local 6 Records, 1899-2000, (Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archive)
