As a cooling-off period between 14 large San Francisco hotels and their biggest labor union nears its end, hoteliers are irritated that the union has resumed efforts to persuade guests and conventions to avoid hotels involved in the dispute.

Representatives for the hotel group said they are not going to lock out workers when the 60-day cooling-off period expires at midnight Jan. 23, agreement or none. They plan to seek further bargaining sessions next week. But they do not rule out the possibility of a lockout further down the line.

With one scheduled bargaining session remaining before Jan. 23, each side pointed the finger at the other dragging out the dispute.

Hotel managers said they were concerned the union was not serious about trying to reach an agreement before the end of the cooling off period, while the union said the hotels' most recent contract proposal leaves little reason to believe such an agreement is possible.

Meanwhile, the hotels have argued that a continued lobbying campaign by the union to drive away business from their properties calls into question whether the union is serious about bargaining. A spokeswoman for the hotel coalition said more than a dozen large convention and meeting customers have heard from the union in the last two weeks, urging them to boycott the Multi-Employer Group, as the coalition is known.

"The harassing phone calls to meeting planners have increased dramatically," said Matt Adams, general manager of the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero and a negotiator with the hotel coalition. "No one has canceled yet because of it, but it certainly leaves a bad taste in their mouth."

The hotel employees' union says it clearly and explicitly informed the hotels during negotiations for the cooling off period that the boycott campaign would continue. Mike Casey, president of local 2 of UNITE HERE, said the union has no plans to back down from those efforts.

"We'll drive business out of these hotels for the next five years if we get a chance," Casey said.

One group that recently moved its event in response to the labor fracas is the MLK Labor & Community Breakfast. The San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Martin Luther King Jr.-day event, and its 600 participants, changed from the Hilton San Francisco to the Golden Gateway Holiday Inn, said coordinator Millard Larkin. That move, Larkin said, came in response to concerns from participants, many of whom are union members, rather than in response to any outside lobbying by UNITE HERE.

Mark Theis, head of the convention division at the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau, said the bureau has received a handful of calls in the past three days from concerned meeting planners who have heard from the union. One inquiry came from a speaker who was slated to speak at an event held at one of the targeted properties. Union organizers had apparently pulled up his name from an online meeting agenda.

"It doesn't send a signal of wanting to cooperate," Theis said. "Ultimately, once these things do get hammered out, the people they are calling are the ones putting the heads in the beds they need to clean or the people in the cafes where they are delivering coffee."

Casey said the union was concerned with the hotels' most recent offer, which he said still has "huge cuts in health care," including caps on how much expense increase will be paid for by the hotels, as opposed to workers.

The hotels have proposed capping health care cost increases at 10 percent in the first year of a five-year contract, rising to 16 percent by the fourth year. Compared to the current contract, it would also limit the number of part time workers who could claim health benefits.

There has been some progress on contract length. The union had asked for a two-year deal, while the hotels wanted a five-year deal. The union has subsequently offered a contract as long as four years, and the hotels a shorter contract.