Published: June 02, 2008 11:12 pm         

Top client pulls plug on Greenbrier

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS — The Greenbrier’s top client, the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, announced Monday it has canceled its 94-year-old fall leadership meeting because of the resort’s ongoing labor dispute.

In a letter obtained by The Register-Herald, Ken Crerar, president of the Washington, D.C.-based group, informed Greenbrier President Andrew Fogarty the move was being made because “of everyone’s inability to resolve their differences.”

Crerar had previously said he would not risk the chance of a labor strike occurring while the CIAB is at the resort. The group spends “millions of dollars” with The Greenbrier each year.

“Your inertia in ending this dispute over the past several months has been agonizing to witness,” Crerar wrote. “With no signed contract in place, we are left with no choice but to move our meeting which is only four short months away.”

This marks the third conference that Crerar has canceled with the resort in 2008; however, the fall meeting is by far the group’s largest. All 721 resort rooms are normally booked in advance and this would have marked the group’s 95th annual leadership forum at The Greenbrier.

Last week, a smaller CIAB meeting was held at The Homestead, a Virginia resort about 50 miles east of White Sulphur Springs, but that venue does not have the bed space to accommodate the fall meeting. Crerar declined to comment about where the fall meeting would now take place.

“To our many friends at the hotel and in the community who are severely impacted by this regrettable state of affairs, we send you our best thoughts and wishes,” Crerar wrote.

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In the past month, Crerar placed full-page ads in The Register-Herald, The West Virginia Daily News in Lewisburg and The Roanoke-Times in Virginia urging both sides to hammer out a labor agreement.

Although the union’s five-year contract with The Greenbrier expired in January, a reduced number of employees has been working under the terms of their old agreement. Greenbrier officials refuse to say how many employees have been laid off.

Union officials have previously said that disagreements in pension plans and health benefits have stymied talks thus far.

Harold Bock, a spokesman and negotiator for the Council of Labor Unions, which represent the resort’s nine labor unions, said new talks have yet to be scheduled. The two sides met last Thursday.

Bock said the union’s recent three-year wage and gratuity freeze proposal was rejected by The Greenbrier and it’s unknown when everyone will get back to the table.

“We have sent the company (The Greenbrier) a number of dates, including a day to meet this week,” Bock said by phone Monday. “And I have not yet heard any response from them at this point.”

On Monday Greenbrier public relations director Lynn Swann called CIAB’s decision “disappointing.”

“We are disappointed that the CIAB has decided to move their October meeting, but we understand their position,” Swann said. “The CIAB is a valued client and we appreciate our long-standing relationship with them.

“The Greenbrier will continue to meet in good faith to negotiate collective bargaining agreements and we look forward to completing successful negotiations.”

Bock previously said the resort faces a $50 million loss in 2008 if an agreement is not reached.

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Greenbrier officials are also now faced with the unsavory prospect of whether the insurance group will ever return to the resort once the labor dispute is resolved.

“When you break a 95-year tradition, all bets are off,” Crerar said by phone Monday. “We will be evaluating as the year progresses and when we start planning for 2009, we will be evaluating The Greenbrier in the context of other relationships we have been forced to develop.”

— E-mail:

cgiggenbach@register-herald.com