Just days after Gov. Pat Quinn and State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias joined labor and community leaders to commemorate the six year anniversary of the Congress Hotel strike, the establishment's owners netted a huge win at City Hall. In front of a rowdy audience that included a few dozen UNITE-HERE Local 1 hotel workers, many of whom were eventually escorted out by police, members of the mayorally-appointed Plan Commission approved an expansion proposal yesterday that would allow the Congress to add four floors to its southwest portion along Harrison Street and one floor on the side near Michigan and Congress.

As we noted earlier this week, the vote came after a Circuit Court judge ordered the commission to take up the hotel's building proposal again, which was initially killed in January 2008. Testimony about alleged building code violations and working conditions -- the justification for aldermanic dissent the first time around -- were irrelevant to this plan in the court's view because the hotel applied for the expansion under the Lakefront Protection Ordinance (LPO), not as a zoning change. An attorney for the hotel told the commission that the hotel would spend $20 million to increase capacity by 56 hotel rooms and add a swimming pool, a restaurant, and a health club. Of course, that's $20 million they won't spend to pay their striking workforce a wage commiserate with service workers at virtually every other hotel in the city. Local 1 communications director Annemarie Strassel says the union wasn't surprised with the decision, but they question the legal advice the commission members were given, specifically the opinion that the the committee did not have to consider the general welfare in its decision. "It's very unfortunate," she tells us. "The commission's hands were really tied." 

As the Sun-Times David Roeder explains, the Plan Commission was the final authority on this issue because votes regarding the LPO aren't subject to full council review. And despite criticism from Ald. Ed Burke yesterday, who asked city attorneys why he and other members weren't consulted about an appeal, the time for future action seems to have passed. But that doesn't mean the fight to reform the hotel has waned. Ald. Rick Munoz (22nds Ward) has reintroduced legislation in the City Council that would require hotels to notify potential guests of a strike. "It's really a consumer protection bill," he tells us. "When I travel ... I don't want to cross a picket line, and I think people should be informed if one exists." Munoz is working with members of the Finance committee to set a hearing date for his bill, which has already attracted 42 co-sponsors. Strassel tells us the union won't back down from their campaign, either. "The city has a question to answer about how to deal with hotels in the coming months," says Strasell. "We will be there every step of the way."

Images used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user Swanksalot.