On February 25th, 2010, Castlewood Country Club – an upscale Pleasanton golf course – locked out its 61 cooks, servers, dishwashers, bartenders and janitors. More than two years later, we are still locked out.
Castlewood used to be a good place to work – we weren’t getting rich, but we had stable jobs with free health care for our families. But in 2009, a new management team began pushing us to accept a contract where we would pay $739 a month for family health insurance – more than 40% of our average wages!
We offered to give up raises and make other concessions to offset the costs of family health care – so our proposal was actually cheaper than the Club’s. But instead of accepting, the Club locked us out, trying to starve us into accepting a bad deal. Then they held special meetings to tell us we could come back to work if we decertified our union! But we stood strong and voted 41-17 to stay union.
Over the two years, instead of moving forward to reach a win-win solution, the Club keeps coming to the bargaining table with worse and worse proposals. Managers now say that if we want to come back to work, we have to agree to pay $849 a month for family health care. We would also have to agree that they could lay off longtime workers, while keeping new hires on the job – without showing that the older workers had done anything wrong. After two years in the streets, we need jobs we can count on – we can’t agree to let them lay us off without good cause at any time.
We have been fighting for over two years now, and we won’t give up until we can go back to work with a fair contract. We need your support! On this page, you can find more detailed background information about the history of the dispute and the contract negotiations. Here you can find out how to take action to help us get back to work!
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
CHRONOLOGY OF THE LOCKOUT
BARGAINING DETAILS