By: Jeffrey Wu

Hotel employees in Southern California went on strike on Sunday, July 2nd. Just as thousands of tourists arrived to celebrate the Fourth of July, these workers began a strike to demand higher wages and better benefits.

According to Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, the workers’ union, “workers have been pent up and frustrated and angry about what’s happened during the pandemic combined with the inability to pay their rent and stay in Los Angeles. So people feel liberated, it’s Fourth of July, freedom is reigning in Los Angeles and hotel workers are leading that fight.”

In recent months, employees at several Southern California firms have threatened or actually gone on strike in an effort to get better pay and working conditions. Many people find it challenging to make ends meet due to Los Angeles’ high cost of living.

“It’s homelessness, it’s the cost of housing,” said Hugo Soto-Martinez, a member of the Los Angeles City Council and an organizer for Unite Here Local 11. “I think people are understanding those issues in a much more palpable way.”

Wages and salaries have not matched the recent hike in inflation for many workers, including for Diana Rios-Sanchez, a housekeeping supervisor at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown.

She frequently worries about how long she and her three kids will be able to afford to live in their one-bedroom apartment in El Sereno, a neighborhood east of LA.

“All we do in hotels is work and work and get by with very little,” Ms. Rios-Sanchez said. “We take care of the tourists, but no one takes care of us.”

Since April, the union has been negotiating a new contract. In June, members agreed to the strike.

The protesters have requested that housekeepers’ hourly wages, which are now $20 and $25, be promptly raised by $5 and then increased by $3 each year of a three-year contract.

However, Mr. Grossman, a representative for the coordinated bargaining group consisting of more than 40 Los Angeles and Orange County hotels, stated that the hotels had proposed raising the hourly wage for housekeepers, who currently make $25 in Beverly Hills and downtown Los Angeles, to more than $31 by January 2027.

The 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics are anticipated to be huge tourist attractions for the area, so agreements made this year will compensate for those years.

Source:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/02/us/los-angeles-hotel-workers-strike.html