Global Courant
Thousands of Southern California hotel workers took to picket lines on Sunday, wearing red union T-shirts and urging others to join their fight for better wages and benefits in a region they say has become increasingly unaffordable.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” said Diana Rios Sanchez, a supervisor and former room clerk at the InterContinental in downtown Los Angeles, where protests began as early as 6 a.m.
At midnight on Friday, contracts expired at 62 regional hotels where non-management employees, including front desk personnel and those who work in restaurants and cleanrooms, are represented by Unite Here Local 11. More than 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona are represented by the union.
Sanchez said pandemic staff cuts mean there are hundreds less employees at the hotel where she works. Workers are “actually doing the work of two or three now,” she said.
Rising housing costs in Los Angeles have forced workers to live farther from their jobs. Brenda Mendoza, a uniform clerk at the JW Marriott, drives two hours from Apple Valley to work and says she’s not alone.
“Many of the workers I train have moved because they can’t live where we are now. Gas is up and everything is expensive,” Mendoza said.
The union is demanding an immediate pay raise of $5 an hour and an increase of $3 each subsequent year in the three-year contract, for a total of $11. The union has also made proposals related to health care, pensions, workload and a policy against using E-Verify, a federal eligibility check system, to protect migrant workers.
Seventeen hotels in Los Angeles and Orange counties experienced work stoppages on Sunday. Workers sang, “Únete, únete – a la lucha únete!” (Join, join, join the fight, join!) as they marched outside the downtown hotels.
At the Sheraton Hotel near Universal Studios, pizzas arrived in the afternoon for strikers, some of whom brought their children.
Representative Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), who is running for the U.S. Senate, joined the picket line at the Sheraton, along with Senator María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), who served as Unite Here Local 11 Chapter President from 1989 to 2006.
“These workers,” said Schiff, “should be able to live somewhere where they work and have decent wages and health care and pensions that they can live on.”
The congressman said those who “serve us when we stay in hotels are at risk of becoming homeless every day of the week. We just have to make sure the economy works for everyone.”
Durazo says the hotel industry needs to “step up” to support workers. “It may hurt them, but it hurts the workers much more.”
A housekeeper at the Santa Monica Viceroy took out her anger at management, which on Thursday brought in temporary workers in the event of a work stoppage, she said, noting that about 10 recent immigrants arrived, suitcases in tow.
The contract was “still in effect,” said the 40-year-old hotel housekeeper. “We told the company that we felt betrayed.”
Wilson Medina works two jobs: as a housekeeper at the Sheraton Universal Hotel and as a mechanic. He’s also a new dad: three weeks ago, his son was born prematurely and had to spend time in the neonatal intensive care unit.
Noting the looming hospital bill, Medina said better health care was one of the main reasons he left his job. He hopes that contract negotiations will lead to more affordable benefits for his family.
“I know I’m not the only new dad or new parent dealing with this,” he said.
The strike is the second major action by the union in recent weeks. On June 22, Unite Here Local 11 met hundreds of protesters on Century Boulevard near Los Angeles International Airport to draw attention to the issue of low-wage tourist workers being priced out of the area.
City Councilors Hugo Soto-Martínez and Nithya Raman and City Councilwoman Wendy Carrillo (D-Los Angeles) were among dozens of people arrested while participating in the demonstration.
