Thousands of hotel workers in southern California walked off the job on Sunday, as the Fourth of July extended holiday weekend begins, demanding higher pay and better benefits in what their union is calling the largest strike in its history.
Cooks, room attendants, dishwashers, servers, bellmen and front desk agents at hotels were picketing outside major hotels in Los Angeles and Orange counties just as the summer tourist season is ramping up.
Last month, members of Unite Here Local 11 voted 96% in favor of authorizing the strike. The union is seeking better wages, improved healthcare benefits, higher pension contributions and less strenuous workloads. They are asking for a $5 immediate hourly wage increase for members and a $3 boost annually for the entirety of their 3-year contract.
In addition, the union wants to create a “hospitality workforce housing fund” to help workers deal with the soaring costs of living in greater Los Angeles. Many employees report commuting hours to work because they can’t afford to live near their jobs.
“Our members were devastated first by the pandemic, and now by the greed of their bosses,” union co-president Kurt Petersen said in a statement. “The industry got bailouts while we got cuts.”
Contracts expired at midnight on Friday at more than 60 hotels, including properties owned by major chains such as Marriott and Hilton. The strike affects about half of the 32,000 hospitality workers the union represents across southern California and Arizona.
The first to strike on Saturday were more than 500 workers at the InterContinental and Indigo hotel in downtown, the Los Angeles Times reported. They were soon joined by those at DoubleTree by Hilton and the Biltmore Los Angeles as well as those at Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa in Dana Point, workers said.
At the InterContinental, staff cuts during the pandemic have resulted in fewer workers doing more work, said Diana Rios Sanchez, a supervisor and former room attendant at the InterContinental, to the LA Times.
“Before, we had 800 [people]. Now we have 500,” Sanchez said. “Now we’re basically doing the job of two or three.”
The strike coincides with the sold-out Anime Expo, which began 1 July at the Los Angeles convention center. The event has grown over the years and can draw as many as 100,000 attendees, according to its website. Accommodations offered to those attending the expo included several Marriott and Hilton locations.
Last week, a deal was reached with its biggest employer, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles, which has more than 600 union workers. Union officials described the tentative agreement, which provides higher pay and increased staffing levels, as a major win for workers.
Talks with other hotels were at a stalemate. A coalition of more than 40 hotels involved in negotiations accused union leaders of canceling a scheduled bargaining session and refusing to come to the table. The hotels have offered wage increases of $2.50 per hour in the first 12 months and $6.25 over four years, the group said.
Unite Here Local 11 “has not budged from its opening demand two months ago of up to a 40% wage increase and an over 28% increase in benefit costs”, the hotel group said in an email on Friday to the Los Angeles Times. “From the outset, the union has shown no desire to engage in productive, good faith negotiations with this group.”
Hotel workers last staged a major strike in 2018 when nearly 8,000 Marriott employees walked off the job in eight cities across the US, including Boston, San Francisco, Detroit and Honolulu. It lasted more than two months before a contract deal was reached.
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