Under pressure from the National Lawyers Guild, the Minnesota State Bar Association moved an event that had been scheduled at a St. Paul hotel that is the site of a labor-management dispute.

The Bar Association, holding its annual convention June 21 and 22 at the Xcel Energy Centre in downtown St. Paul, moved a convention-related event from the Holiday Inn RiverCentre after members of the National Lawyers Guild raising the issue of union-busting.

“The Guild has always believed that the foundation stone for a just society is the fundamental right for people to develop trade unions of their own free will,” said Peter J. Nickitas, a spokesman for the group. The lawyers joined members of Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Local 17 and other unions in picketing in front of the hotel June 21.

In addition to getting the event moved, the Guild has secured a promise from the Bar Association that it will identify unionized hotels when it sends out convention information and will notify members of any labor-management disputes or unfair labor practices, Nickitas said, adding “We will work to make sure the state Bar Association follows through.”

The hotel, formerly a Days Inn, was recently renovated to take advantage of its location across from the new Xcel Energy Center. It reopened as a Holiday Inn, but management refused to rehire any of the Days Inn employees or honor their union contract.

The Days Inn owners took on a new majority partner before they switched to a Holiday Inn franchise, and they maintain they are a new company not bound by the union contract.

The National Lawyers Guild was formed in 1937, during a wave of unionizing in the United States, Nickitas said. Guild lawyers were among those who successfully defended the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act, the 1935 law that created the framework for collective bargaining. Members of the Bar Association argued against the law before the U.S. Supreme Court, he said.

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