Tentative approval of a contract for hotel workers in Los Angeles might be a prelude to resolution of a 10-month labor dispute involving 14 major San Francisco hotels and their 4,000 union employees, a labor official said Monday.

The tentative accord, reached Saturday at 4:55 a.m. at Los Angeles City Hall, was brokered by Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa. It was signed five minutes before 2,800 room cleaners, bellhops and other employees were to be locked out of seven hotels that had been at odds with the union since March 2004.

"This is a total vindication for the union and a great victory,'' said Mike Casey, president of the hotel workers union Local 2 in San Francisco. "It bodes well (for San Francisco hotel negotiations).''

San Francisco hotels say they are optimistic that an agreement could be near.

"We remain very hopeful that we will soon reach a settlement with Local 2 that is beneficial for our employees here in San Francisco,'' said Steve Trent, a spokesman for the bargaining group for the hotels.

San Francisco hotel and union negotiators are expected to return to the bargaining table by month's end.

In Los Angeles, the union got what it had held out for -- a contract with an expiration date in 2006, putting it in sync with union locals in Hawaii, New York, Chicago, Sacramento, Monterey and Toronto, thus enhancing its bargaining strength.

The union had sought an expiration date in April of 2006, but accepted Nov. 30. That makes the Los Angeles contract the last to expire and should allow the hotels to avoid a labor dispute, should one occur in other cities next year, said Brian Fitzgerald, president of the hotel council.

A 2006 contract expiration is still the union's goal in San Francisco, although in Washington, D.C., the site of another major hotel negotiation this year, it accepted a contract ending in 2007.

Los Angeles hotel workers who do not receive tips will get a raise of 65 cents per hour over 31 months. Tipped workers get no raise. All other current employee benefits, including employer-paid health care, will be maintained in the agreement.

Tension had mounted in Los Angeles on Thursday when the union struck one hotel, the Hyatt West Hollywood, and employers responded by voting to lock out workers Saturday at 5 a.m.

Villaraigosa called the head of the ownership group at the Westin Bonaventure, Peter Zen, who had been a major supporter in the mayoral campaign, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Villaraigosa asked Zen "how a lockout can be avoided, how we can make a deal,'' the source said.

The Bonaventure is one of the seven hotels in the Los Angeles bargaining group.

Zen met with executives of the six other hotels, telling them it was worth their while to wrap up talks, and a meeting was set for Friday at Los Angeles City Hall beginning at 10 p.m. Villaraigosa put the two sides in separate rooms and brokered the deal through the night and early morning, the source said.