Beverly Hills Hotel Workers Strike, 3rd Wave Grows
Beverly Hills, CA: The 3rd wave of the nation’s largest hotel strike expands to Beverly Hills as more than 1,000 more cooks, room attendants, dishwashers, servers, bellmen, and front desk agents at multiple properties walked out this morning.
Jovani Ramirez, a cook who works at both the Beverly Hilton and Fairmont Century Plaza and commutes from Santa Clarita said, “I am going on strike because I work two full time jobs to provide for my 4 children. I need free family healthcare because my youngest son is autistic. It is morally wrong that I work 16 hours a day in our most prosperous industry but cannot afford to live in Los Angeles.”
“A room attendant at the Waldorf Astoria must work 60 hours to earn enough to pay for one night at this ritzy hotel,” said Kurt Petersen, Co-President of UNITE HERE Local. 11. “Yet the hotel’s last offer did not add one more penny for wages. Hilton could care less about whether their workers are able to afford to live in Los Angeles.”
Thousands of workers at 43 hotels have struck so far. But only the Westin Bonaventure has reached a tentative agreement that includes a living wage that will enable workers to afford to live in the city where they work.
Last week, the hotel industry led by Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott, presented a new economic proposal that did not have one penny more for wages, pension or healthcare.
The ongoing labor unrest has caused groups such as the Democratic Governors Association, Japanese American Citizens League, W.K Kellogg Foundation and Vanderpump Rules to cancel their events.
The union’s bargaining committee sent a letter to the American Political Science Association requesting that the 6000 person organization cancel its Annual Meeting & Exhibition, which is set to take place on August 31 to September 3, 2022 at the Los Angeles Convention Center.