Last year was a big year for the US labor movement with historic wins and gains for workers at UPS, automakers, and for writers and actors in Hollywood. But for thousands of hotel workers, the majority of whom are Latina women from immigrant communities, their fight has continued into 2024 without garnering the same amount of public attention.
California’s hotel workers have led one of the biggest strike waves to ever hit the US hotel industry to secure wage increases they say they need to afford to live in the areas where they work. Their actions coincided with the “hot labor summer” that saw ultimately successful union campaigns from Hollywood writers, actors and others.
Thousands of hotel workers throughout southern California have gone on strike over 100 times since last July in demand of new union contracts with workers seeking historic wage increases, benefits, and protections commensurate with the intense workloads and issues hotel workers have experienced in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
They have utilized similar tactics to the United Auto Workers’ successful “Stand-Up” strike strategy – staggering short-term strike actions against targeted hotels rather than an all-out walkout.
Twenty-eight hotels throughout southern California have reached agreements with Unite Here Local 11 so far, but a handful of hotels are still holding out from agreeing to similar contracts, including the Doubletree DTLA, Doubletree San Pedro, Sheraton Park Anaheim, Holiday Inn LAX, Santa Monica Hampton Inn, Santa Monica Courtyard Marriott, Hilton Pasadena, the Blackstone-owned Aloft, Fairfield El Segundo, Hotel Maya, Hyatt Place Pasadena and the Hyatt Regency at Los Angeles international airport.
The workers, represented by Unite Here Local 11, have been engaging in picket protests, strikes and launching boycotts to pressure the remaining hotels to agree to new contracts with the workers.
Yesenia Reyes, a housekeeper at the Hyatt Regency for nearly 10 years and a single mother of six kids, works two full-time jobs. She said she is seeking improvements to wages and protections to compensate for the immense workloads she faces, workloads that worsened due to services being cut throughout the hotel industry during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It’s been extremely difficult since the pandemic. They were no longer servicing the rooms every day, so after cleaning rooms that haven’t been cleaned for three or four days, the workload gets very heavy and the hotels are still making money. Meanwhile our workload has been getting harder,” said Reyes. “We’re human, like everybody else, we have families we’re trying to support and to take care of.
“The picketing, everything we’ve done, we want to deliver a message that what we’re fighting for is fair and just. A lot of us rent, and rent keeps going up. We have landlords who sell the building then new owners come in and jack up the rent. All over the place, it’s becoming increasingly impossible to live.”
At least 18 workers have faced disciplinary action for picketing in December at the Hyatt Regency at Los Angeles international airport, according to Unite Here Local 11.
Ricardo Blanco has worked in the food and beverage department at the Hyatt Regency for nearly 24 years and was one of the workers written up for participating in a picket protest.
“I’ve always felt secure based on what I know, knowing my job, and knowing what I’m asked to do. But right now I feel up in the air,” he said. “The message they’re saying to us is if we keep on doing this, we’re going to get fired,” said Blanco. “We’re just human beings looking for what is fair to be able to survive and make a living in California. We’re just looking for respect and dignity, not intimidation.”
He noted that the hotel is owned by a different union, the pension fund for the Southwest Carpenters Union, and argued they should understand why the workers are pushing for retirement benefits and livable wage increases.
“A lot of my co-workers, including me, we’re over 50, so we’re really concerned and worried about our retirement plans. We’re just getting old, but the company is not moving forward,” added Blanco. “Instead of getting answers, we get disciplinary actions.”
Several Unite Here locals and other labor groups signed a letter to the trustees of the Southwest Carpenters Pension Fund to take a leadership role in resolving the contract dispute with the hotel. The union and pension fund have not responded to the letter and did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.
Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, criticized the ownership and role of this hotel’s public and union pension funds and how those funds have been used to deny workers at the Hyatt Regency fair wages and discipline workers for exercising their rights.
“The idea that our money is being used not only to withhold a living wage from workers, but also to punish them for exercising their rights should not happen,” said Petersen.
He also emphasized the gains other hotel workers have received and the immense public support for the strikes. The details of the tentative agreements haven’t been made public yet, but Petersen argued the contracts bring the city’s hotel workers to a new level.
“It has been a transformational campaign both for the industry and our members,” added Petersen. “It’s not hyperbole to say that folks are more militant and determined today than when they walked out in July. I think the industry knows it. I fear they have lost a generation of employees, to their loyalty of any kind, because rather than listening to their employees’ demand that they earn a wage that allows them to live in the city, they have fought.”
Hyatt did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
