After a yearlong contract battle, workers at seven hotels scaled down their demands for more money to win a key concession - a deal that expires next year.

Now, contracts covering tens of thousands of hotel employees in at least six major cities in this country and Canada are due to expire throughout 2006, setting the stage for unions to press prominent chains such as Starwood, Hyatt and Hilton for gains on a national scale.

John Wilhelm, co-president of UNITE Here, the union representing bellmen, maids and other hotel industry employees, said it's the only way for workers to take on the industry giants.

"They band together to deal with us, whether we do or not, so we're merely reacting to circumstances they created," he said.

Joe McInerney, president and chief executive of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, said the strategy might not work because hotel operators negotiate separate contracts in each city.

"You have local unions that, really, the national does not control," McInerney said. "They make their own decisions. It's very hard to tie something in New York with something in Hawaii."

In Los Angeles, 2,700 hotel workers will start voting Wednesday on the tentative contract. Under the deal, housekeepers, who make up the bulk of union employees, would see their wages increase an average of 65 cents an hour to about $11.75 by April 16.

Agreements are also set to expire next year in New York, Boston, Honolulu, Chicago and Toronto. Including Los Angeles and smaller markets, some 75,000 workers are covered by the contracts, Wilhelm said.

Talks are also under way in San Francisco to win a contract that ends in 2006, but negotiations with 14 hotels have deadlocked.

"In the past, the tradition was you had bargaining, and it would be city by city. Now you don't," said Daniel Mitchell, professor of management and public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Across the country, hotel operators have fought the move by dangling multiyear deals with long-term increases in wages and benefits. It worked in Washington, where some 3,200 workers at Hilton, Marriott and Omni hotels opted for a contract in January with significant pay hikes that expires in 2007.

Employers in Los Angeles tried a similar move last week, proposing a deal that would have given workers an average $2.50 an hour pay raise over four years. But the union didn't budge. On the day the offer was set to expire, it called a strike at the Hyatt hotel on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.

Hotel operators countered with a threat to lock out workers at the other six hotels. Mediation by Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa and others led to the tentative agreement set to end in November 2006.

The strategy echoes similar efforts in recent years by the Service Employees International Union, which represents janitors.

McInerney doesn't think contentious negotiations await the industry next year.

"We think that the union is going to be bargaining in good faith," McInerney said. "We feel there's an opportunity to get a longer contract in 2006."

While wages are likely to remain a local issue, Wilhelm said the bunched up expiration dates will help talks on health care, workers' compensation, job training and union organizing.

"If the industry wants to create Armageddon in the hotel industry in 2006, our customers will be confronted with rolling labor disputes across North America," Wilhelm said. "That's not necessary. Labor and management should recognize a common interest."

Mitchell suggests the union may have won a round by negotiating 2006 contract expiration dates.

"If the management side can get its act together, that's another story," he said.

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