ORGANIZING IN LONG BEACH

Hotel Workers Seek a Voice in the Workplace

The City of Long Beach has invested an estimated $750 million in tourism development since the early 1980s in order to reinvent its downtown as a destination for vacationers and convention attendees. But the hotels that have benefited from that investment have produced low-wage hotel jobs, which contribute to high levels of poverty in the city.

In an effort to change this, the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community formed to ensure that our city’s tourism industry provides good jobs that strengthen our community and to promote responsible approaches to development that serve the needs of Long Beach residents.

We believe that the Long Beach hotel industry can and must invest more in its workforce in order to guarantee long-term success, benefit Long Beach residents and businesses, and create more jobs that can support Long Beach families. This coalition works with hospitality workers and UNITE HERE Local 11 to give a voice to workers struggling to make ends meet.

UNITE HERE Local 11 is engaged in a campaign to raise living standards and working conditions for thousands of hospitality workers in Long Beach. In September of 2009, workers from the Hilton Long Beach called for a boycott of their hotel after a year of appeals to hotel owners to allow workers organize a union in a manner free of intimidation and harassment. Workers say harsh workloads and lack of affordable healthcare and job security make conditions intolerable.

Similarly, workers at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach are organizing to win a voice on the job, better working conditions and improved living standards.