By: Benjamin He

For most people, working isn’t much of a pleasant experience. If you have an office job, it’s commonly described as having to sit down in a white cubicle for several hours a day while constantly being reminded of how much of a fool you are. If you have a job that requires social interaction, it’s rude customers you now have to deal with. If you have a hotel job…that’s kind of a combination of everything, along with the prospect of potentially poor wages.

Just on Sunday, Los Angeles hotel workers seemed to think the same, and they decided to go on strike…at a tactically good time. It was around the time of the 4th of July, which meant that there were going to be tourists flooding the entirety of the region.

“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,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, the union representing the workers.

“All we do in hotels is work and work and get by with very little,”says Diana Rios-Sanchez, who works as a housekeeping supervisor at the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown, the pay has not helped to keep up with inflation.. “We take care of the tourists, but no one takes care of us.”

During the Los Angeles hotel strike, workers marched the streets, demanding that hourly wages, now $20 and $25 for housekeepers, immediately increase by $5, followed by $3 bumps in each subsequent year of a three-year contract.

However, Keith Grossman, a spokesman for the coordinated bargaining group consisting of more than 40 Los Angeles and Orange County hotels said in a statement that the hotels had offered to increase pay for housekeepers currently making $25 an hour in Beverly Hills and downtown Los Angeles to more than $31 per hour by January 2027.

In recent months, more and more similar occasions, such as this strike, have been happening. Workers have been threatening to either strike or quit all across Southern California.

It’s not just hotel staff either. Dockworkers in Los Angeles and Long Beach ports disrupted operations until they got better wages in June.