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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Workers at dozens of Southern California hotels plan to spend their Fourth of July on picket lines as they remain on strike, pushing for higher wages and better health and retirement benefits.
Major demonstrations were set for 10 a.m. Tuesday at the InterContinental Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard and the Le Meridien Delfina in Santa Monica. The striking workers will be joined by members of the Freedom Socialist Party LA. at both locations.
The workers, represented by Unite Here Local 11, have been on strike since 6:01 a.m. Sunday, at major hotels in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Orange County and elsewhere while gathering support from passersby, Writers Guild members - who have been on strike since May 2 - and others with musicians accompanying them at some locations.
Hotel guests have told reporters they want to enjoy the holiday, but understand the workers wanting better pay as the cost of housing and other essentials continues to rise.
"I'm for the cause, so I don't mind it at all," Jason Hernandez, who was staying at the InterContinental while attending the Anime Expo, told the New York Times. "It's hard to live, just in general. Everything's going up."
Unite Here Local 11 represents up to 15,000 workers employed at 65 major hotels in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
The contract between the hotels and the union expired at 12:01 a.m. Saturday although the union reached a deal Wednesday night with the largest of its employers, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles.
Contract agreements are unresolved with the remaining hotels.
Officials have said the hotels will remain open with management and other nonunion staff filling in.
Guests have said the only difference they've noticed so far is seeing barricades and picketing workers when they go outside.
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.
The workers include thousands of cooks, room attendants, dishwashers, servers, bellhops and front desk agents.
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.
"Our members were devastated first by the pandemic, and now by the greed of their bosses," Unite Here Local 11 Co-President Kurt Petersen said in a statement put out by the union. "The industry got bailouts while we got cuts. Now, the hotel negotiators decided to take a four-day holiday instead of negotiating. Shameful."
With the Westin contract settled, the Coordinated Bargaining Group is negotiating on behalf of 44 of the other unionized hotels. The remaining 21 hotels would adhere to that same agreement.
Representatives for the hotels accused workers of being inflexible in their 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 statement provided to the Los Angeles Times.
Attorney Keith Grossman of Hirschfeld Kraemer, one of two firms representing the hotel coalition, told the Times 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.