April 29--The public owner of the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place on Monday called for a swift resolution to the long-running battle between the Chicago-based hotel company and the workers' union, saying it is unfair and inappropriate for the employees to have gone three years without a raise.

"We urge the union and we urge Hyatt to resolve their differences immediately so employees can be paid their due," Jack Greenberg, chairman of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, said at a board meeting Monday morning.

The bitter labor dispute continues at a sensitive time for the authority, which is close to completing a nearly $90 million, 460-room expansion at the hotel. The project is running about two months ahead of schedule and could be open for business in late May or early June.

Greenberg's remarks followed a request by hotel door captain Will Spain, a union representative, that the authority, as owner of the hotel, take steps to get raises for the workers.

"Some of those workers have missed meals ... some of those workers are behind in bills," he said.

Representatives of UniteHere Local One have made similar requests of the authority over the past few months as the dispute drags on across the country.

Locally, Hyatt has been urging acceptance of its offer, which includes a 12 percent increase in wages over four years.

In a statement Monday, the company said: "It's completely disingenuous for UniteHere Local 1 to ask for wage and benefits increases at Hyatt Regency McCormick Place while refusing to allow Hyatt associates to vote on contract proposals that contain those same wage and benefits increases ... the union accepted at Starwood and Hilton hotels in Chicago years ago and includes more than 50 enhancements in it for our associates."

The union's real issue, Hyatt executives have said, is that it wants the ability to recruit members in other nonunion markets using the card check method, in which organizers gather signatures from workers. Hyatt favors secret ballot elections.

Greenberg told Spain on Monday that the agency does not have the power under its management contract with Hyatt to dictate a resolution.

But, he said, "we'll continue to use our best efforts."

A second tower at the hotel is nearing completion with most of the project's $10 million contigency fund intact, Jon Clay, the agency's director of design and construction, said Monday.

About $3 million of the fund is expected to be spent on an existing wish list of amenities, he said, including improved wireless service, a laundry facility for customer use, a second bar and some improved door closers for the hotel's conference center. The latter expenditure, costing $159, 454, was approved by the board Monday morning.

[email protected] -- twitter@kathy_bergen

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