Eric Schmidt (center), an organizer of the Restaurant Workers Union, outside the Park Lane Hotel in Manahattan on Aug. 25. (Credit: Julie Lee)
Kathy Mansilla woke up on the morning of Aug. 25 to find that she no longer had a job as a senior server at Rose Lane, a Manhattan hotel bar and restaurant that had employed her for three years. The news came just a few days after she and her coworkers filed paperwork to form a union.
All 21 employees at the establishment were terminated, Mansilla and other workers said.
“I’m still in shock that this is happening,” Mansilla said the evening of Aug. 25, as she held up a sign that read, “UNION BUSTING IS DISGUSTING,” at a picket line in front of the Park Lane Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Three dozen workers and supporters rallied to demand the workers’ reinstatement.
On Aug. 21, workers delivered a letter to management requesting voluntary recognition, outlining a list of demands as part of a unionization effort with the Restaurant Workers Union. More than 80% of the workers also signed cards seeking a union, organizers said.
Management offered little response at the time, and workers continued their duties as usual. Then, on the morning of Aug. 25, they learned that their jobs were gone.
“My phone just blew up,” with texts from co-workers, said Tom Hawks, a bartender at Rose Lane who helped start the effort to unionize. Hawks said he received the news while walking out of a cancer center where his mother was receiving treatment.
“Like, 40 messages, and it’s, like, ‘fired,’ ‘fired,’ ‘fired,’” he added.
Staff said they were first notified by representatives at the Goodkind Group, the staffing agency that employed them. The union petition named Goodkind Group and Park Lane Hotel as joint employers.
Workers were told that their assignments at Rose Lane were terminated “effective immediately” as a result of the cancellation of the firm’s “agreement with Park Lane,” according to emails reviewed by Columbia News Service.
Former employees of Rose Lane rally outside the Park Lane Hotel on Aug. 25. (Credit: Julie Lee)
According to Dee Zanardi, director of operations at the Goodkind Group, 40 to 45 employees hired through the agency, including those at Darling Rooftop restaurant inside Park Lane Hotel who were not involved in the union petition, had their contracts terminated.
Zanardi, who also received the news of the termination on the morning of Aug. 25, said that Park Lane did not give a reason for the sudden action.
“I’m very, very sad for people to lose their jobs,” Zanardi said in a phone interview. “I wish I could put every single one of them to work elsewhere.”
Demands from the Rose Lane employees had included healthcare for full-time workers, minimum hour guarantees, vacation and sick pay, and just-cause termination rights.
“Everybody here is just paycheck to paycheck,” said Hawks, adding that management had cut shifts from eight to six hours. This change meant workers were no longer entitled to paid breaks and meals, he said.
“You’re charging $40 for a glass of champagne, and you can’t feed us?” he added.
Former Rose Lane workers gathered in front of the Park Lane Hotel at 6 p.m. on Aug. 25, handing out flyers to passersby and holding up signs while chanting “Shame on Park Lane.” The protest continued for 90 minutes as guests speaking French and Mandarin entered and exited the lobby.
Niles Harris, vice president of operations at Park Lane Hotel, did not respond to multiple phone and email requests for comment.
Park Lane Hotel, a luxury hotel that overlooks the south side of Central Park, was acquired by the Qatari Investment Authority in 2023. Most rooms cost more than $1,000 a night, with suites reaching $5,000 a night.
Following the Aug. 25 terminations, Naoki Fujita, an attorney with the Restaurant Workers Union, filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board on behalf of the former workers.
Meanwhile, the former employees intend to keep fighting until they get their jobs back.
“I am hoping they see what they did wrong and we can get back to work soon,” said Mansilla, the senior server.
Inside the hotel on the evening of Aug. 25, Rose Lane was deserted, with no one staffing the bar and a lone patron in the corner. When contacted by phone on the morning of Aug. 26, a guest-services representative said that Rose Lane would be closed for evening service due to “unforeseen circumstances for the foreseeable future.”