Relatively little has been written about the San Francisco Hotel Association's history. Bits and pieces of its organizational development can be gleaned from business case studies published in 1948 and 1952 and from histories of hotel and restaurant labor organizing. SFHA's main purpose was to act as an agent for collective bargaining, but it was also involved in arbitration and mediation, administration of various health and welfare trust funds, and other services for its members.

Most accounts report that SFHA was formed in response to labor unrest in San Francisco's hotel industry that culminated in an 89 day strike in 1937. Between 3,000 and 5,000 workers (about a third of whom were women) walked off their jobs, just as hotels were gearing up for the summer tourist season. Some historians place SFHA's creation prior to 1937. Josephson (1956, page 136), for example, referred to a "Hotel Association" that demanded a 33% wage cut for waiters and cooks as early as 1921. Letterhead stationary used by SFHA in 1986 bears the following words: "established 1933".

In any case, there seems to be an agreement that the first collective bargaining agreement between hotel labor and management was signed in 1937, after the strike ended. A key issue in that strike was the employers' refusal to cover in the bargaining unit employees of the newly chartered Hotel Service Workers Local 283. Eventually, facing losses estimated at $6.5 million, the employers agreed to include most of the disputed workers in the bargaining unit, although the unions lost other concessions that the employers had offered before the strike.

The organization of San Francisco's hotels into SFHA was consistent with a nationwide trend on the part of employers in response to the explosion of labor activity in the 1930s. The hotel owners realized "that they, as individuals, cannot resist, settle, compromise or arbitrate the demands of said labor organizations singly, without great loss to themselves and injury to their business and to the hotel industry, [so they] have agreed to cooperate and work together as a unit, so as to preserve their rights as free Americans" (See SFHA Labor Authorization Agreements, 1937-1944 folder, 1/1).

Initially, SFHA (known variously in its first contracts and agreements as "the Owners and Operators," "the Hotel Owners' Committee," "San Francisco Hotel Owners' Association" (SFHOA), as well as "the Hotel Employers") was composed of the fifteen larger struck hotels and an additional 160 smaller hotels that wished to "ultimately enter into labor contract or contracts jointly to the end that a common policy or program may be adopted by all concerned and permanently pursued" (See SFHA Labor Authorization Agreements, 1937-1944 folder, 1/1).

At some point in the early to mid 1940s, the larger hotel members of SFHA formed their own organization, the Hotel Employers' Association of San Francisco (HEA). The two employer groups continued to work together and were joined by the Golden Gate Motel Association and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association and other industry employer groups. In 1952, SFHA represented roughly 130 hotels with approximately 1200 employees in the bargaining unit. By comparison, HEA contracts covered 5,000 employees at 26 hotels (Kennedy, 1952, page 7).

By the early 1950s, these employer groups were bargaining with seven local craft unions that were affiliated with two international unions as well as a local joint executive board (LJEB). Among the unions were the Apartment and Hotel Employees' Union, Local 14; Hotel Service Workers' Union, Local 283; Cooks, Pastry Cooks and Assistants' Union, Local 44; Waiters and Dairy Lunchmen's Union, Local 30; Waitresses and Cafeteria Workers' Union, Local 48; Bartenders Union, Local 41; Miscellaneous Employees' Union, Local 110; and the Local Joint Executive Board composed of representatives from the Hotel and Restaurant Employees and Bartenders International Union (HREBIU) Local 283 and the Building Service Employees International Union Local 14.

In 1975, many of these unions merged to form HERE Local 2.

For more information on the SFHA, employers' associations, hotel labor organizations, and related groups consult the following collections at the Labor Archives: EPH Hotel Employees, Restaurant Employees, Local 2 EPH Employer Associations - San Francisco Bay Area Institute of Industrial Relations Collection (Box 4/Folders 1-6)