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Unite Here Local 11 members prepare for a strike by hotel hospitality workers in the Southland. | Photo courtesy of UniteHere11/Instagram
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About 1,000 Southland hospitality workers hit the picket lines Monday as the third wave of a strike targeting area hotels continued.
Among the properties being picketed Monday were The Beverly Hilton and the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills.
“A room attendant at the Waldorf Astoria must work 60 hours to earn enough to pay for one night at this ritzy hotel,” Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said in a statement. “Yet the hotel’s last offer did not add one more penny for wages. Hilton could care less about whether their workers are able to afford to live in Los Angeles.”
Members of the Unite Here Local 11 union initially walked off the job on July 2, continuing their picketing through the Fourth of July holiday. That first wave of picketing targeted 21 hotels involved in contract negotiations with the union.
The second wave of picketing began July 10, targeting a total of 12 hotels, including several in the Westchester area near Los Angeles International Airport.
The workers represented by the union include cooks, room attendants, dishwashers, servers, bellmen and front desk agents.
Negotiations with hoteliers resumed last Tuesday, but union officials said no progress was made in their effort to secure higher wages and improved benefits.
The contract between the hotels and the union expired at 12:01 a.m. July 1, although the union previously reached a deal with the largest of its employers, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles.
Contract agreements are unresolved with the remaining hotels.
Hotel officials have said the hotels will remain open during the strike, with management and other nonunion staff filling in.
Representatives for the Coordinated Bargaining Group representing local hotels have accused the union of being inflexible in its demands.
The union “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. From the outset, the union has shown no desire to engage in productive, good faith negotiations with this group,” the reps said in a previous statement.
Attorney Keith Grossman of Hirschfeld Kraemer, one of two firms representing the hotel coalition, told the Los Angeles Times previously that employers have offered raises of $2.50 an hour in the first 12 months and $6.25 over four years. He said housekeepers at unionized hotels in Beverly Hills and downtown Los Angeles, who currently make $25 per hour, would get a 10% wage increase in 2024 and make more than $31 per hour by January 2027.
The workers are on strike “because the union is determined to have one,” Grossman said.
Unite Here Local 11 represents up to 15,000 workers employed at about 60 major hotels in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
The union last week sent a letter to the American Political Science Association asking that it cancel it’s planned 6,000-person annual meeting scheduled for Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at the Los Angeles Convention Center due to the strike.
On June 8, 96% of the union’s members approved a strike authorization. Union officials said a recent survey of its members showed that 53% said they have moved in the past five years or will move in the near future because of soaring housing costs in the Los Angeles area.
Union officials said their members earn $20 to $25 an hour. Negotiators are asking for an immediate $5 an hour raise and an additional $3 an hour in subsequent years of the contract along with improvements in health care and retirement benefits.
The union is also seeking to create a hospitality workforce housing fund. Many union members say they’re now commuting hours from areas like Apple Valley, Palmdale, California City and Victorville.
