Is Organized Labor Back?

Anand Singh is President of UNITE HERE Local 2, representing over 13,000 hospitality workers in San Francisco and San Mateo counties. Shortly after graduating from UC Berkeley in 2002, Mr. Singh attended an AFL-CIO organizing training, where he met worker-leaders who reminded him of his parents — immigrants from Bihar, India — and who inspired him to pursue a career in the labor movement.

Mr. Singh initially worked as a community organizer before joining Local 2 as the organizer of the Mark Hopkins Hotel ahead of the five-day strike and lockout of 2004. From 2013 to 2015, he led the local’s food service division through successful strikes at the San Francisco Giants’ ballpark and San Francisco International Airport. Mr. Singh was elected president in 2015, the first in Local 2’s history to be a person of color. He led the union during a 2018 contract fight with Marriott, when nearly 2,500 Local 2 members went on strike at seven Marriott hotels, winning groundbreaking contracts under the slogan “One Job Should Be Enough.”

David Sherwyn is the John and Melissa Ceriale Professor of Hospitality Human Resources and a Professor of Law at Cornell University’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration. He is also the academic director of the Cornell Center for Innovative Hospitality Labor and Employment Relations as well as a research fellow at the Center for Labor and Employment Law at New York University’s School of Law. In addition, Professor Sherwyn is of counsel to the law firm of Stokes & Wagner. Prior to joining the School of Hotel Administration, Professor Sherwyn practiced management-side labor and employment law for six years.

Professor Sherwyn has published articles in the Arizona State Law Review, Berkeley Journal of Labor and Employment Law, Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, Fordham Law Review, University of California Hastings Law Journal, Indiana Law Journal, Northwestern Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and the University of Pennsylvania Labor and Employment Law Journal. His research interests include arbitration of discrimination lawsuits and union-management relations.

With extensive experience in labor and employment law and in the hospitality industry, Keith Grossman is an entrepreneurial legal executive known for leading enterprise-wide efforts to facilitate growth and manage risk across global operations.

A partner at Hirschfeld Kraemer, Mr. Grossman brings an informed strategic perspective on crisis management, client needs, business priorities, and budgetary realities. His practice is focused on the full panoply of employment and labor law, including collective bargaining, employment litigation, internal investigations, training, and crisis management. Mr. Grossman also offers employment counseling and workplace violence prevention program development and administration. He draws from 30 years of experience, both in house and in private practice, to help clients develop strategies, programs, and approaches to prevent or mitigate risk and to solve pressing workplace issues.