NEW YORK — The fight over a proposal to regulate New York City’s hotel industry is testing the sway of a union with near-singular political influence.
For years, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council has slayed its enemies — Airbnb, real estate developers and a powerful deputy mayor — with unmatched political might.
Now it is up against a multi-million-dollar lobbying push over a bill it had a hand in drafting to require hotel owners to obtain operating licenses and restrict their use of subcontracted workers.
The owners are planning to spend up to $20 million to fight the measure that an industry representative has described as a “nuclear bomb” for their sector. And a separate but related backlash from restaurant owners was quickly successful in delaying the first hearing on the measure and getting the hospitality industry carved out of the bill.
“HTC is the most politically powerful union in the city — especially considering its size, it very much punches above its weight,” said Chris Coffey, a political consultant. “This bill is going to be a test of that. It’s not going to be easy for them, but there’s no one else that’s better positioned.”
The lobbying effort thrusts premier hotel owners into combat with a union that has clout with Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council and has scarcely lost a political fight in recent memory.
“I don’t think threats and intimidation are an effective tactic,” said Council Member Julie Menin, the lead sponsor, referring to the industry’s pushback. “On the contrary, more members have signed onto the bill since that threat has been made.”
But a person in the industry said the opposition is already having an impact in the hotel owners’ favor.
“The instinct is to go to war, and that’s why you see some groups now planning to spend millions of dollars which would be directed at council members,” the person said. “The council is slowly paring back the bill to avoid the controversy and convince the larger industry that this isn’t the nuclear bomb they think it is.”
Influential lobbyists and political consultants are lining up on both sides of the issue.
Vito Pitta — Adams’ campaign attorney — is lobbying on behalf of the union through his firm Pitta Bishop, according to two people familiar with the matter. Frank Carone, one of the mayor’s closest advisers, is on the union’s payroll as well, though he isn’t working on this particular legislation presently, according to people familiar with his involvement.
Meanwhile, Neal Kwatra, the hotel union’s former political director, is advising a group of owners who are fighting the bill, according to four people familiar with the matter. Peter Ward, former president of the union, also represents owners fighting the bill, though multiple people familiar with the issue say his involvement has been minimal. And Evan Thies, a top adviser to Adams, is representing the Hotel Association of New York City, the industry trade group.
From kneecapping Airbnb’s expansion into the city to effectively banning the construction of non-union hotels, the union has won virtually every major legislative priority it has pursued in recent years. It has often made bets on the right politicians and benefited from those alliances.
The union, for example, was instrumental in elevating Corey Johnson to council speaker in 2017. During his tenure, the legislative body approved multiple bills cracking down on short-term rentals and passed special permit rules that were widely seen as a way to ensure future hotels use union labor.
The Hotel Trades union later endorsed the ill-fated presidential bid of former Mayor Bill de Blasio, who backed the special permit favored by the union over the objections of his own planning department.
The union’s former political director Katie Moore ran Mayor Eric Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign, and Jason Ortiz, a political consultant close to the union, ran an independent expenditure for him.
Over that election cycle and in 2023, the union contributed at least $1 million to council candidates. Its hold on the legislative body is so strong that when the hotel owners’ association wanted to delay action on the latest licensing bill, it reached out to the union directly instead of the council, which ostensibly controls its own timeline for hearings and votes.
Even critics of the most recent legislation acknowledge the union’s influence and say a version of the bill is likely to pass despite the opposition of hotel owners and real estate interests. The measure currently has 34 council sponsors, a veto-proof majority, up from about 24 sponsors as of late last week. It has additionally picked up support from other unions, including 32BJ, DC37, NYSNA and the Central Labor Council.
But the hotel industry’s might — and money — has not been used against the union to this extent in past legislative pushes.
The association of hotel owners backed the fight against Airbnb, and the industry helped fund a campaign in support of legislation to curb short-term rentals. The association was supportive of zoning changes requiring hotels to obtain a special permit through the city’s lengthy land-use review procedure. That policy has had the effect of limiting new hotel supply — and boosting the rates at existing hotels.
But the industry is aggressively fighting this latest push, arguing it would destroy the city’s tourism economy and put hotels out of business. The hotel association’s opposition, and the planned $20 million in spending from an offshoot group called Hotel Owners of New York, creates a dynamic that has not existed in the union’s prior fights.
The union was initially aiming to get the bill passed over the summer, but a July hearing in the council was postponed to October amid strong backlash from the hotel industry, real estate interests and restaurant owners. (The bill has since been amended to carve out restaurants and bars located in hotels and address other concerns, and the New York City Hospitality Alliance is no longer opposed.)
“This legislation has been crafted with politics in mind, not policy,” Vijay Dandapani, president of the hotel association, said in a statement.
Despite the union’s longstanding influence, the threat of industry money being spent against the bill and council members themselves could affect their deliberations on the legislation.
“The hotel industry, if they get this shoved down their throat, how are they going to respond in 2025? The union will no longer have the playing field to themselves,” said one person in the hotel industry who requested anonymity to speak freely. “You’ve awoken a sleeping giant.”
Proponents of the bill are undaunted and say the hard-line opposition voiced by hotel owners is not representative of the whole industry.
“It’s disappointing that some hotel owners have refused to come to constructively engage in the process, but hopefully they now realize that’s not a winning approach,” Rich Maroko, president of the union, said in a statement.
Menin, for her part, said she is “absolutely open” to further amendments to the bill.
“The real problem here is there’s a small group of anti-union billionaires that have been refusing to negotiate and essentially trying to block other hotel owners and members of the association from negotiating,” said one person close to the union. “The hotel owners are certainly biting the hand that has kept them well fed for many years.”
