Global Courant
Would superheroine Sailor Moon cross a picket line? That’s the question the organizers of Unite Here Local 11 asked Anime Expo attendees in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday during a packed July 4th weekend.
North America’s largest anime convention kicked off Saturday at the Los Angeles Convention Center, just as hotels in Los Angeles and Orange County braced for what could be the largest U.S. hotel workers’ strike in recent history, with 15,000 workers were affected.
Employees of more than 60 hotels in the region are about to quit their jobs after their contracts expired at midnight on Friday. Anime Expo visitors and hotels brace themselves for disruption. As of Saturday evening, the union had not yet announced a work stoppage, although organizers distributed information leaflets about their efforts outside the convention.
The union struck a deal Wednesday night with its largest employer, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown LA, which has more than 600 employees. Union officials described the preliminary agreement as a major victory for the workers. Bonaventure employees receive higher wages, affordable health insurance and pension premium increases. The agreement also guarantees a return of cleaning staff to pre-pandemic levels.
However, conversations with other hotels remain heated. A coalition of more than 40 hotels involved in negotiations denounced the union in an emailed statement on Friday, accusing its leaders of canceling a scheduled negotiation session and refusing to come to the table.
Unite Here Local 11 “has not budged from opening requirements two months ago for a pay rise of up to 40% and an increase of more than 28% in benefits,” the hotel group said. “From the outset, the Union has shown no desire to engage in productive, good-faith negotiations with this group.”
Keith Grossman, an attorney at Hirschfeld Kraemer, one of two law firms representing the hotel coalition, took issue with the union’s support for certain policy proposals, including a 2024 ballot measure that would require hotels in Los Angeles to vacate vacant rooms. rent to homeless people.
Grossman said the coalition has offered meaningful pay increases, proposing $2.50 an hour in the first 12 months and $6.25 over four years. Under the proposal, housekeepers at union hotels in Beverly Hills and downtown Los Angeles, who currently earn $25 an hour, would receive 10% pay increases by 2024 and earn more than $31 in hourly wages by January 2027.
“If there is a strike, it will happen because the union is committed to having one,” Grossman said in an emailed statement.
A spokeswoman for Unite Here Local 11, Maria Hernandez, denied that the union had canceled all planned negotiations and said it is pressuring hotel companies to accept the higher wage proposal it made at the start of negotiations.
“Employees take nothing less than that,” Hernandez said. “They can walk out any minute.”
The union represents more than 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona. Members are non-executive hotel employees, including people who man reception desks, clean rooms, and work in hotel restaurants.
Some Anime Expo attendees had heard about the possibility of a strike and planned ahead. Alma Bermudes had packed provisions so she wouldn’t have to rely on hotel services in the event of a strike.
Several panels of the expo will be held at the JW Marriott, one of the hotels where employees can walk out. A union organizer told Bermudes that if the strike goes ahead, attending the panels would mean crossing a picket line.
“It’s understandable, and they have families to feed. They have lives and pay bills, and we need to help support them. It’s unfair that we get luxuries and they don’t get paid well enough,” Bermudes said.
If the JW Marriot workers went on strike, she said, she would probably forfeit the Anime Expo and “sniff around elsewhere.”
Union member Sean Johnson hands out flyers to Anime Expo attendees in downtown Los Angeles. Johnson is a member of Unite Here Local 737 in Orlando, Fla., and flew out to support Southern California hotel workers in their negotiations.
(Helen Li/Los Angeles Times)
The main bottleneck for workers is the demand for higher wages, which they say are necessary to cover rising housing costs in the region. Expensive housing means many workers live far from their jobs, requiring hours of commuting.
Tensions escalated Thursday at the Viceroy Santa Monica, a luxury resort, where union organizers accused management of deploying temporary “strike-breakers” to staff the hotel in the event of a strike.
Rocelia Morales, a 40-year-old housekeeper at the hotel, said a group of about 10 employees who said they were recent immigrants from Ecuador arrived in the lobby Thursday, suitcases in tow. “The contract is still in effect, so we told the company that we felt betrayed. We felt they were playing with people’s feelings,” Morales said.
According to Unite Here Local 11 organizer Hannah Petersen, housekeeping staff were instructed to put cots in some rooms. But when staff asked management about the new arrivals, she said, the hotel denied plans to bring in temporary workers.
The Viceroy of Santa Monica did not respond to a request for comment.
Peter Hillan, a spokesperson for Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles, an industry group, said it’s “standard practice” for hotels to hire temporary workers to make sure guests are served and that employees shouldn’t be surprised to be replaced if they threaten to walk out. Hillan said his group had expected the strike to begin on Saturday.
“I am puzzled and confused about Unite Here’s plans,” said Hillan.
The threat of strikes from hotel workers is one of the outbursts of job protests in what California labor leaders have called a “hot labor summer.” Unions in several sectors are pushing for wage increases.
Hollywood writers have been on strike since May 2 and actors are in tense negotiations with studios. SAG-AFTRA members had voted to approve a strike if their leaders could not secure a new film and TV contract to replace one that expired at midnight on Friday. But the union agreed on Friday to allow more time to negotiate, which could prevent a strike for the time being.
California hotel workers last went on a major strike in 2018, when nearly 8,000 housekeepers, bartenders and other workers left their jobs at 23 Marriott hotels in eight U.S. cities, including San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose. That strike lasted more than two months before contract agreements were made.
Yohannes Laksana and his friend Trisha Pei flew over from Austin, Texas, for the Anime Expo, and waited in line for “weapons check” outside the North Hall entrance of the convention center on Saturday. Laksana wore a red wig and portrayed Diluc, a character from the action role-playing game Genshin Impact.
The pair are staying at a Hilton hotel in Pasadena and said that when they woke up that morning, a note slipped under their door. It was an advisory from the Hilton that warned guests of a possible strike and suggested that they request services in advance as staff may be limited.
Laksana and Pei consider asking for extra towels, just in case.
