LOS ANGELES — UNITE HERE Local 11 has signed contracts with 34 hotels since they began a series of walkouts here last June. A couple dozen hotels are holding out. A target of organizing efforts by the union is the downtown Hotel Figueroa where 300 union members and their supporters rallied April 5.
This hotel is owned by BentallGreenOak, a private equity outfit. In February, workers at the hotel’s five restaurants organized to join the union. The subcontractor that was operating the restaurants — Noble 33 — then closed down, eliminating workers’ jobs.
“They put them out on the street and many of them are still looking for work,” Noelia Gonzalez, a housekeeper at the hotel told the rally. “The hotel and company would not exist without our hard work and effort — that’s why we deserve what we are fighting for.
“On many occasions during our pickets we’ve been attacked,” added Gonzalez.
A featured speaker at the rally was Bernie Sanders, U.S. Senator from Vermont. Other speakers were UNITE HERE presidents Ada Briceño and Kurt Petersen, as well as Yvonne Wheeler, head of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor.
The following day, UNITE HERE Local 11 members walked off the job at the Sheraton Hotel in Phoenix. The hotel was designated as a host hotel for the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament. The union’s contract with the hotel expired last June. Workers were protesting hotel management’s interrogation and surveillance tactics designed to limit workers’ rights to participate in labor demonstrations.