15,000 Empowered Hotel Workers Unleash Strike, Demanding Pay Increases

Thousands of Los Angeles-area hotel workers went on strike on Sunday demanding pay hikes and improved benefits in a region where high housing costs make it difficult for low-wage earners to live close to where they hold jobs, union officials said.

The union is demanding a $5 immediate hourly wage increase and a $3 boost each subsequent year of the three-year contract, for a total of $11. The union has also made proposals related to healthcare, pensions, workload and a policy against the use of E-Verify, a federal system for checking employment eligibility, to protect immigrant workers.

Unite Here Local 11, which represents 15,000 workers at more than 60 major hotels in Los Angeles and Orange counties, declared the strike a day after the workers’ contract expired. It marks one of the largest strikes to hit the U.S. hospitality industry in recent years.

The labor dispute comes during the July Fourth holiday weekend as Southern California’s busy summer travel season goes into high swing. It overlaps with a Hollywood screenwriters strike that was headed into a ninth week, already taking a toll on the Los Angeles economy and showbiz production.

Hotel workers, including housekeepers, dishwashers, cooks, waiters, bellhops and front-desk agents, struggle to afford housing in cities where they work, and many were idle during the COVID-19 pandemic while industry profits soared, the union said in a statement .

“Our members were devastated first by the pandemic and now by the greed of their bosses,” union co-president Kurt Petersen said in a statement. An industry bargaining group representing more than 40 hotels accused the union of political posturing, pursuing the strike as an organizing tool and failing to negotiate in good faith.

Several thousand workers walked off the job starting Sunday morning at about a dozen hotels, and the numbers are expected to grow as the strike wears on, union spokesperson Maria Hernandez said.

Among the hotels targeted the first day, she said, were the InterContinental, Hotel Indigo, Millennium Biltmore and JW Marriott LA Live in downtown Los Angeles, as well as the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica, the Sheraton Universal in Universal City and Laguna Cliffs Marriott in Dana Point.