The union representing workers at eight upscale Los Angeles hotels offered Monday to drop its demand for a 2006 contract expiration - a major sticking point in the prolonged negotiations.

But the union's accompanying requests for higher wages, benefit increases and a promise that the union would be able to organize newly acquired properties were immediately rejected.

Although talks are to resume Thursday, both sides appear far apart and doubtful that much progress would be made.

The Los Angeles Hotel Employer's Council, which represents landmarks such as the Millennium Biltmore and Westin Century Plaza, said the union's latest proposal wasn't serious. It "was clearly designed for us to not accept it. They knew that when they made it," said council spokesman Fred Muir.

Muir said the deal offered by Unite Here Local 11 would have boosted housekeepers' pay a total of $2.40 an hour over three years, an 18% hike that was "off the scale." Beyond that, the hotels made it clear long ago that they would never agree to any neutrality agreement that would let Unite Here organize properties acquired by chains in the council, he said.

After rejecting the union offer, the council on Monday afternoon made its own five-year proposal, which the union found equally offensive. Among other things, the hotels proposed to take away retroactive pay raises that date to the expiration of the contract in April. Local 11 President Maria Elena Durazo said that was a step backward.

"This shows they were not interested in getting off an '06 expiration," she said. "They're only interested in making the hotel workers poorer and taking away their health benefits."

Durazo said the union, which bargains with a team of about 65 rank-and-file members, would return with another proposal.

Muir was pessimistic that talks would get far. "We told them there doesn't seem to be much point in meeting again unless they're willing to accept our contract proposal or revise theirs considerably," he said.

Monday's bargaining session was the first since mid-December. Negotiations began last spring, but little progress was made because the two sides were at loggerheads over the contract's length. At one point, the hotel council declared the negotiations at an impasse because Local 11 wouldn't agree to a contract of three years or longer. That declaration was recently challenged as illegal by the National Labor Relations Board.

The union has been trying to line up contracts across the country to expire in 2006, which would allow it to stage coordinated strikes or other job actions. The union argues that as the industry consolidates, it needs to respond by building national bargaining clout.

Although the union has succeeded in lining up contract expirations for next year in New York, Boston and Chicago, the strategy met determined resistance from hotels in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington.

Last month, the local in Washington agreed to a contract ending in 2007. In San Francisco, where talks are continuing, the local has made an array of proposals, with bigger pay increases linked to longer contract terms.

This is the first time the Los Angeles local has offered a different contract length. "We are offering a choice to the employers that we think accomplishes the same goals," Durazo said. "We believe we have a responsibility to offer other strategies."

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