PASADENA, Calif. — Hotel workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 11, struck the Hilton Pasadena and Hyatt Place Pasadena hotels New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. The city hosts the annual Rose Parade and Rose Bowl football game that weekend, drawing thousands of tourists and fans.
The strikers and their supporters celebrated New Year’s Eve with a picket line at the Hilton and a march through the city, wearing party hats, carrying balloons and blowing on noisemakers. A contingent of Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists members, veterans of the recent actors strike, joined in.
Hotel workers throughout the area have been fighting for a contract since July with a series of rolling work stoppages. “The main issues are a raise, health care, workloads and pensions,” Milton Acevedo, who works in bar service at the Hilton, told the Militant. He said the current walkout was the sixth work stoppage at the Hilton.
The union is fighting for contracts for 15,000 workers at 60 area locations. So far, 24 hotels have signed tentative contracts pending ratification.