LOS ANGELES: Thousands of hotel workers in Los Angeles, California, went on strike on Sunday morning as they pushed for better wages and benefits, kicking off what was expected to be one of the largest US hotel strikes in recent history.

Unite Here Local 11, which represents thousands of cooks, room attendants, dishwashers, servers, bellmen and front desk agents at hotels in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, said in a statement that union workers were struggling to afford housing in the cities where they worked and had suffered job cuts during the Covid-19 pandemic while industry profits soared.

A union spokesperson said workers at hotels across the region including the InterContinental and Hotel Indigo had walked off the job on Sunday, during a busy weekend ahead of the July Fourth holiday.

IHG Hotels and Resorts, which operates the InterContinental and Hotel Indigo, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Contracts expired June 30 at 62 Southern California hotels, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Westin Bonaventure, the biggest hotel in Los Angeles, came to an agreement with its workers just a day before the expiration, the union said.

The union is seeking a hospitality workforce housing fund and is asking for better wages, healthcare benefits, pension and safer workloads, the statement said.

Ninety-six per cent of hotel workers had voted to authorise a strike on June 8.

The Los Angeles area has been the scene of other strikes or walkout threats in recent months.

In the entertainment sector, Hollywood writers walked off the job in early May as their union contract expired. Actors belonging to the SAG-AFTRA union temporarily averted a strike as the union and major studios agreed on Friday to continue negotiations through

mid-July.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the strike will affect roughly 15,000 cooks, room attendants, dishwashers, servers, bellmen and front desk agents at hotels in Los Angeles and Orange counties, including the JW Marriott in the L.A. Live entertainment district and luxury destinations like the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica.

More than 500 workers at the Intercontinental and Indigo hotels in downtown Los Angeles were the first to join the strike on Sunday, taking to the streets with picket signs at 6 a.m. Workers at the DoubleTree by Hilton and the Biltmore Los Angeles downtown soon joined the walkout along with those from the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa in Dana Point, workers said.

“Our members were devastated first by the pandemic, and now by the greed of their bosses,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11 said in a statement Sunday morning. “The industry got bailouts while we got cuts. Now, the hotel negotiators decided to take a four-day holiday instead of negotiating. Shameful.”

In downtown, Metro Local bus drivers and passersby honked their horns in support of the workers. Music in Spanish blasted next to a tent with doughnuts and coffee as strikers in Unite Here Local 11 red shirts checked in for their shifts.

“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Diana Rios Sanchez, a supervisor and former room attendant at the Intercontinental, told the Los Angeles Times.

Attendees of Anime Expo — the largest anime convention in North America that kicked off Saturday — passed by the workers as they walked to the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“Únete, únete — a la lucha únete!” (Join, join, join the fight, join!) workers chanted as they marched on the sidewalk near the hotel entrances.

At the Intercontinental, staff cuts during the pandemic have resulted in fewer workers doing more, Sanchez said.

The LA Times reported that contracts expired midnight on Friday at 62 Southern California hotels where workers are represented by Unite Here Local 11. More strikes will occur throughout Los Angeles today, said Unite Here Local 11 spokesperson Maria Hernandez.

The union on Wednesday evening landed a deal with its biggest employer, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown L.A., with more than 600 workers. Union officials described the tentative agreement as a major win for workers. Bonaventure employees will receive higher wages, affordable health insurance and increases in pension contributions. The agreement also guarantees a restoration of cleaning staff to pre-pandemic levels.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2023