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Unionized employees at large hotels in southern California’s Los Angeles and Orange counties are demanding higher wages and better benefits in a region where high housing costs make it difficult for low-wage earners to live close to work.
Unit Here Local 11, which claims to represent 15,000 workers at more than 60 major hotels in Los Angeles and Orange counties, declared on Sunday what it calls one of the largest walkouts in the US hotel industry in recent years. .
Cooks, dishwashers, waiters, bellboys and hotel receptionists congregated this July 3 in front of the main hotels, just when summer tourism is increasing and shortly before the national holiday of July 4, one of the great peaks of visitors.
The union is seeking, in addition to higher wages, more health care benefits, higher pension contributions and less strenuous workloads.
“Since the pandemic, they began to lay off people. We have had a lot of workload on us. Before there were 800 employees and now we are 500. Sometimes I end up doing the work of two or three people,” explained Diana Ríos Sánchez, a union member.
BREAKING: Southern California hotel workers are ON STRIKE! Thousands walked off the job at properties across DTLA & Santa Monica. Dozens more properties remain without a Union contract. Visiting the area? Don’t be a scab! Where are we striking? Learn more ⤵️ #SoCalHotelStrike pic.twitter.com/dnc58HhTPV
— UNITE HERE Local 11 (@UNITEHERE11) July 2, 2023
Another request involves a housing fund to help workers cope with the rising costs of living in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, as many employees say they cannot afford to live close to their jobs. job.
María Hernández, a union organizer, stated that “the hotel workers have to move farther and farther to travel to the city, which forces them to drive two or three hours.”
The union had reached an agreement Friday with the largest of its employers, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles.
However, the same did not occur with other establishments such as the InterContinental, the Hotel Indigo, the Millennium Biltmore and the JW Marriott LA Live also in downtown Los Angeles, as well as the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica, the Sheraton Universal in Universal City and the Laguna Cliffs Marriott in Dana Point.
The industry bargaining group said its hotels would remain open with non-union management and staff filling in for striking workers.
The strike coincides with the beginning of the third month of cessation of activities of the scriptwriters of the big Hollywood studios, who also demand labor improvements and fear that their work will be partially or totally replaced by Artificial Intelligence.
With Reuters and AP
