The Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees (HERE) International Union is going straight to the source—meeting planners—in its efforts to impact business at uncooperative hotels, and some planners are playing ball. In San Francisco, HERE is escalating a boycott against the city's Park Hyatt hotel because of a dispute concerning worker choice of union representation, says boycott and community organizer Kelly Dugan. "We're asking planners not to stay at the hotel both for the moral reason of supporting the workers, and the practical reason of avoiding a noisy picket line."Meanwhile, in Chicago, a HERE-supported strike at that city's Congress Hotel entered its second year in June, and union workers are having continued success diverting group business. "I brought a meeting to the Congress Hotel last year, and they did picket outside, and it was not a nice situation," says JoAnn Hambuechen, who plans meetings for The Upledger Institute in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. For next year's meeting, Hambuechen switched to another venue. "We have instructors coming in from Europe, and we can't make them walk through a strike. It doesn't make a very good impression." Clare Fauke, a spokesperson for the union, says when planners learn of the ongoing labor situation at the Congress Hotel, they often relocate. "We've had shows move with as little as one week of lead time."