Their strike is also a fight against app-based staffing
By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor, G. Jordan Granucci, Editorial Intern
A month after the first picket lines were deployed in front of Los Angeles hotels, labor leaders and the Coordinated Hotel Bargaining Group representing most of the hotels are still locked in negotiations with no end in sight.
On July 18, workers at the Doubletree Hotel in San Pedro were on the picket line enduring the early morning heat as picketers pounded drums and shouted labor slogans in Spanish.
Doubletree Hotel worker of 10 years, Maria Gonzales, told Random Lengths News, “They don’t appreciate us as workers. They don’t appreciate us as human beings. And they don’t appreciate our work. They refuse to give us what we consider is just.”
The strike is not limited to just San Pedro’s Doubletree hotel. After the contract expired on June 30, the union initiated a rolling wave of strikes across Southern California on the weekend of July 4, causing Local 11 members from 43 properties to take to the streets all across Los Angeles and Orange County. So far, only the Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown LA has reached an agreement with its staff.
Maria Hernandez, an organizer at Unite HERE Local 11, said the strikers at the Doubletree on July 18 “were the third wave.” “Now we’re on the third wave.”
Workers have been in negotiations with their employers since April 20. As of June 30, the contracts of 15,000 employees across 60 hotels in LA and Orange Counties have expired.
The original proposal from April 20 was the 5-3-3 plan, a three-year contract that demands an immediate $5 wage increase followed by an extra $3 per year, totaling up to an $11 increase.
Picketer Elizabeth Field said, “[The proposal] isn’t really out of the question, since we have both the Olympics and the World Cup coming during that time.”
As Maria Mesa, another housekeeper, explained, they responded with an “insulting lowball offer.”
“I’ve worked here for 12 years,” Mesa went on to say. “We want respect, a better salary, medical insurance, and a pension plan to be able to retire with dignity. We also want more personnel for work, to help us guarantee that every room is clean on a daily basis. If they lay off a lot of workers, it’s more difficult to keep them clean.”
Hernandez called the bargaining group’s “insulting lowball offer” a firm rejection of any wage, or pension.
“They rejected mandatory daily room cleaning, which was eliminated during the pandemic. They also rejected Juneteenth as a paid holiday,” Hernandez went on to add.
“When the pandemic hit, most of us were laid off,” Gonzales went on to say. “I was laid off without medical insurance. To be laid off without medical insurance during a pandemic is deadly. We want guarantees that in the event of another pandemic, the same things will not happen again.”
For its part, the Coordinated Hotel Bargaining Group, accuses the union of bargaining in bad faith, saying that the union is falsely claiming that the Bargaining Group’s proposal does not secure employee health care for the next four years.
“It is not surprising the union is refusing to provide any proof to back up its health care statements and demands as well as information regarding its other proposals,” Keith Grossman, spokesperson for the Coordinated Bargaining Group, said.
The bargaining group felt so strongly that on July 6, it filed an National Labor Relations Board case against the union over that allegation and others.
The bargaining group claims the union violated the law by insisting on poison pill conditions in any new contract such as insisting that hotels agree to support a 2024 ballot measure to require hotels in Los Angeles to rent vacant rooms to homeless people; impose a 7% tax on guests of unionized hotels; and grow Local 11 in locations outside of Los Angeles.
For context, the Los Angeles City Council voted 12-0 to put to a public vote a measure that would require hotels in Los Angeles to rent vacant rooms to homeless people. This initiative is backed by Unite Here Local 11 and a number of progressive community and housing groups. The union gathered enough signatures to place it before voters in 2024.
The proposal came as the city gradually began closing one of its signature programs set up to address homelessness during the COVID-19 pandemic: Project Roomkey, which turned multistory hotels into makeshift shelters.
However, the politics surrounding the ballot initiative could very well change since the release of a three-part ProPublica exposé on how the city allowed hotel owners to contravene a 15-year-old city ordinance that attempted to halt the disappearance of affordable housing units.
The series focuses on the American Hotel in downtown Los Angeles which in 2008 was supposed to be reserved for residents who can’t afford to live anywhere else. For decades, the building was a haven in the city’s sky-high housing market, where artists, musicians and people down on their luck could rent rooms for about $500 a month. At the end of the day, longtime tenants would hang out at Al’s Bar, a legendary punk and alternative rock venue on the ground floor where bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers played long before they sold out stadiums.
But amid the largest homelessness crisis in the nation, the American’s owner has turned the building into a boutique hotel where tourists can book rooms for as much as $209 a night.
And the city has done nothing to stop him.
Capital and Main and ProPublica identified 10 other residential hotels and provided a blueprint on how they found them.
App-based Staffing the New Scabs
Last week, the Jacobin reported on how app-based staffing companies have been filling in the gap in labor needs during the strike. The leftist magazine recounted the story of Thomas Bradley. who signed up for a shift at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott Resort & Spa in Orange County via Instawork. Upon arriving at the hotel, Bradley was greeted with a picket line. He hadn’t realized that the permanent workers were on strike; Instawork’s job posting hadn’t mentioned it.
When he realized that he was being used as a strikebreaker, Bradley decided to join the union members on the picket line rather than work his scheduled shift. He felt it was simply the right thing to do.
“If you see something that you know is wrong, what are you gonna do? You’re gonna try to fix it,” explained Bradley. “I did what I felt was right. These are people’s jobs and I didn’t want to take somebody’s job away.”
Instawork users are rated using a five-star system. As a result, the app marked Bradley as a “no-show” for his shift at Laguna Cliffs. He had signed up for shifts at other area hotels, but he said that Instawork quickly canceled those assignments. On July 12, after he again joined a picket line, this time at the Hilton Anaheim hotel, the company suspended his account. According to Local 11, the suspension was only lifted when reporters reached out to Instawork about Bradley’s case.
The union filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Instawork over the case, as well as several additional cases at other hotels documented by the local, arguing that the app’s automatic penalization of workers who engage in a protected concerted activity constitutes a violation of labor law.
The strikers at the Doubletree are not limited to the housekeeping staff. Rafael Sandoval is one of them. He worked in the banquet department for 23 years.
“Housekeeping works the most and earns the least,” Sandoval said. “I’m here in solidarity. We’re here so they are paid what they’re owed.”
The solidarity aspect of the strike is alive and well. “We’re here because we need to be united,” he added. “The strength is in the union.”
The maintenance staff was also in attendance during the strike, although in lesser numbers. I spoke with Arcenio Garcia, who’s worked here for seven years.
“If you unite, you’re stronger,” he mentioned. He also pointed out issues within the management and the demanding stance they take when approaching their maintenance crew, exacerbated by a dearth of resources for their employees in this department.
“When they want something done, they want it now. They want us to build things that we don’t have materials for. At least for my department, we’re always missing something.” He puts it bluntly: “In the hotel, there are issues everywhere. It cannot always be fixed.”
“It didn’t have to come to this,” Hernandez said. “If the Bonaventure can do it, these other hotels can sign the contract as well. In addition, the hotels should’ve told guests about the picket lines.”
The spirits are strong among the employees, and they all had a resounding answer when I asked them what the public should know: “We’re only asking what we’re owed.”