PRESS INQUIRIES
For Press Inquiries:
Maria Hernandez, Communications
(623) 340-8047 (mobile)
mhernandez {at} unitehere11 {dot} org
For Arizona Press Inquiries:
Rachele Smith, Communications
(623) 670-9889 (mobile)
rsmith {at} unitehere11 {dot} org
Some of the following press releases have been shortened and edited to avoid redundancy.
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Anaheim Hospitality Workers Submit Over 25K Signatures on Initiative to Guarantee Protections Against Sexual Assault and Fair Pay led by UNITE HERE Local 11
PRESS RELEASE: 03/13/2023
PRESS CONTACT: Maria Hernandez | 623-340-8047 | [email protected]
Anaheim Hospitality Workers Submit Over 25K Signatures on Initiative to Guarantee Protections Against Sexual Assault and Fair Pay led by UNITE HERE Local 11
Initiative would follow lead of Irvine and other cities to mandate panic buttons and other protections for hotel housekeepers
Anaheim: Hospitality workers in Anaheim have filed signatures for the “hospitality worker bill of rights law.”
In recent years, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Monica, Glendale, and West Hollywood have adopted laws guaranteeing fair pay for heavy workloads and protection against sexual assault for housekeepers who work alone in guest rooms, among other protections. Last year, Irvine became the first city in Orange County to follow suit by passing a “hotel housekeeper bill of rights” law.
The movement has now moved to Anaheim, where thousands of community and worker proponents have called for city ordinance providing the following standards at hotels and event centers:
Panic buttons with a security guard on call, mandatory training and security protocols to protect hotel housekeepers from sexual assault and threatening conduct by guests and others
Fair pay when housekeepers are assigned heavy workloads and a prohibition on mandatory overtime after 10 hours
$25.00 minimum wage for hotel housekeepers and other hotel workers with an annual increase in wage to reflect the cost of living
Protections ensuring workers are retained when new owners or operators take over their workplaces
The initiative comes as workers across the hospitality sector report that they have been forced to perform increasingly burdensome workloads without fair pay as business returns to pre-pandemic levels.
“I want Anaheim to know that all hotel workers have the right to protections and fair pay for heavy workloads,” said Irayda Torrez, a housekeeper for 33 years at Hilton Anaheim where panic buttons were not provided until 2019. “Housekeepers want to feel respected by having fair pay for our hard work and a wage that accounts for the rising cost of living.”
“The tourism industry’s workforce is tired of feeling overworked and underpaid as business returns to pre-pandemic levels,” states Ada Briceño, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11. “Anaheim should look to Irvine as an example and adopt the housekeepers initiative to provide hotel workers with fair wages for hard work and guarantee protections for women on the job.”
Anaheim workers who run the city’s profitable tourism industry deserve dignity and respect, and all housekeepers should have basic protections in the workplace.
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UNITE HERE Local 11 is a labor union representing over 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona who work in hotels, restaurants, universities, convention centers, and airports
UNITE HERE Local 11 Secures 4+ Million Dollar Deal with Recall Rights, Free Health Insurance and Pension Contributions for Laid Off Workers at Loews Santa Monica Hotel
Santa Monica, CA: Hotel workers at the Loews Santa Monica Hotel reached a historic agreement with the hotel’s new operator, IHG and the hotel’s owner, Strategic Hotels, to provide recall rights, free family health insurance and pension contributions for the expected 9 month closure due to renovation of the property.
The UNITE HERE Local 11 bargaining committee secured an agreement that is worth more than $4,000,000 that includes:
“We fought hard for this extraordinary agreement. While we are nervous about how we will survive during this layoff, knowing that our families will have health insurance and we will continue to build our pension is an enormous relief. At antiunion hotels like Casa Del Mar and Shutters we know that we would be completely at their mercy. At our hotel, because of the Union, we have a voice and can demand and win what we need,” said Ligia Rivas, who spent 11 years as a room attendant at Loews.
The hotel is expected to reopen before the end of the year as the Regent Santa Monica.
Airline Catering Workers at Flying Food Group Vote to Authorize Strike, 99% YES
The vote comes amidst a labor renaissance as teachers and other service workers across the region fight for better jobs.
Workers are also striking due to allegations that FFG locked multiple emergency exits to prevent workers from picketing and has not taken effective action to protect female employees from sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination.
“When multiple doors were bolted shut on the day of our picket, it felt like the company was treating us like animals and was trying to interfere with our union rights,” said Gary Duplessis, 62, a cook at the facility and a complainant to Cal/OSHA, “It was dehumanizing. We’re tired of being treated like this. If a strike is what we need to do to get FFG to respect our legal rights, we are ready. We are ready to do whatever it takes to get what we rightfully deserve.”
“Airline catering workers serve the international tourists who visit our city year-round, and they will serve the athletes and travelers who come here for the World Cup and the Olympics,” said Susan Minato, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11, the union that represents FFG employees. “Our union is committed to making sure that ALL tourism workers make enough to live near where they work, can retire with dignity, and are treated with respect on the job. Flying Food Group is failing in all of these areas, and so these workers are ready to strike.”
Airline catering workers’ collective bargaining agreement with FFG expired in June 2022, and a six-month extension produced little progress during negotiations.
Terranea Housekeepers Launch Voter Initiative for Fair Pay and Legal Protections Against Sexual Assault on International Women’s Day
Initiative would follow neighboring cities’ adoption of laws guaranteeing legal protections for housekeepers
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA: Today, Terranea Resort Housekeepers and their community allies launched a ballot initiative, the Hotel Worker Protection Ordinance, that would require hotels to provide fair compensation to hotel housekeepers and ensure legal protections for housekeepers from threatening conduct from guests when they work alone in guest rooms. The ordinance would require:
In recent years, similar laws have gained traction and now protect housekeepers in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Monica, Glendale, West Hollywood, and, most recently, Irvine.
In November 2019, as reported by the LA Times, the Terranea Resort’s ownership contributed more than million dollars to defeat a similar ballot initiative which would have protected housekeepers—a group made up predominantly of immigrant women of color—in Rancho Palos Verdes. Undeterred, the resort’s housekeepers and their community allies are returning to finally win the legal rights they have been demanding for years.
“Across the tourism sector, we are seeing housekeeping workers being forced to take on even more burdensome workloads, even as business returns to pre-pandemic levels. RPV should follow the many other cities that have enacted laws guaranteeing housekeepers get fair pay for their work and protections against threatening conduct,” said Nico Gardner-Serna, a member of the Rancho Palos Verdes community.
In recent years, multiple women, including 2017 Time Person of the Year Sandra Pezqueda, have alleged they experienced sexual harassment and other misconduct while working at the Terranea Resort. The resort is owned by Lowe, led by Robert and Michael Lowe, and JC Resorts, which was recently accused of sexual harassment by women workers at a country club the firm manages.
“I felt there was no respect or protection of my rights at Terranea,” says Sandra Pezqueda. “Rancho Palos Verdes workers and community members know that we need to strengthen our laws to prevent abuse in the tourism industry.”
Community members and California NOW, the Feminist Majority, and the California Democratic Party have pledged to boycott the Terranea until women workers are treated with dignity and respect.
“The Terranea is a pariah. They spent more than a million dollars so that they would not be legally required to respect basic legal rights for their workers, many of whom are women. They used the pandemic to fire their employees, discarding them like they were disposable, even as their owners, like Robert J. Lowe, continue to amass wealth from the hotel,” stated Lorena Lopez, director at UNITE HERE Local 11. “This law would protect the welfare of housekeepers who make the owners of hotels like Terranea so wealthy.”
In April 2020, at the outset of the pandemic, Terranea fired most of its employees, including those who had worked at the hotel from its opening. Terranea workers led the fight to win SB-93—California’s right to return to work law—ensuring that the Terranea’s workers had a legal right to return to work at the hotel. The Office of the Labor Commissioner, led by Lilia Garcia-Brower, investigated complaints from workers alleging violations of the recall law. As reported by the LA Times, after the DLSE cited the company for allegedly violating the law, the Terranea agreed to pay more than $1.5 million to 53 workers laid-off at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic whom the agency alleged it had failed to recall, or timely recall.
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UNITE HERE Local 11 is a labor union representing over 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona who work in hotels, restaurants, universities, convention centers, and airports
Irvine Voters Stand by Hotel Housekeepers; Reject Half-Million Dollar Referendum To Block Pro-Woman Law
Irvine, CA: The hotel industry failed to collect the number of valid signatures required to referendize the Housekeeper Bill of Rights passed in November by the Irvine City Council.
Housekeepers fought to pass the bill in 2022, which provides:
Led by Hyatt Hotels and the American Hotel and Lodging Association the industry spent over half a million dollars to defeat a law that would protect women from assault on the job and provide fair compensation for heavy workloads. Their efforts proved unsuccessful and voters in Irvine rejected their message and stood by Irvine’s hospitality workers.
“My coworkers and I fought hard to pass the Housekeeper Bill of Rights in Irvine, and we are glad voters believed in the will of the City Council and us when we told them what we needed,” said Maria Balderas, housekeeper at the Irvine Hilton.
“The hotel industry lied to voters to protect their bottom line. In the end, voters saw through the sham and believed women, ” said Ada Briceño, co-president UNITE HERE Local 11.
Irvine became the first city in Orange County to pass increased protections for housekeepers. California cities such as Long Beach, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Glendale and Los Angeles have similar ordinances.
Airport Workers Called on CEOs of North American Commercial Airport Governing Bodies to Help Solve LA’s Housing Crisis
Hundreds Rally Outside Invitation-Only Forum at Five-Star Santa Monica Beachfront Hotel
Inspired by the more than 1,000 hotel workers and allies who rallied outside the American Lodging Investment Summit’s annual gathering held downtown two weeks ago, the rallying Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) employees, accompanied by many hotel workers, addressed attendees of the Airports Council International-North America’s 2023 CEO Forum. The event offered “an opportunity to help set the airport industry agenda for 2023” and featured “executive-level discussions on the North American and global state of the industry,” according to its Web site.
“Although I welcome guests into our beautiful city every day, I can’t afford to live in LA,” said Eleanor Ramos, who’s worked as a bartender at LAX for the last 26 years. “After my apartment building was bought up, my rent went from $925 a month to $1,395 a month overnight. I am barely hanging on to my housing. I’ve seen how many senior citizens have been left homeless and I worry that that will be me someday.”
The current airport minimum wage of $18.04 an hour would require an airport worker to labor 17 hours a day to be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles.
Closing out the evening, and as a nod to the hotel hosting the CEO forum, hotel seamstress and Gardena resident Carmen de Castro spoke of not being able to afford rent in Santa Monica, where her employer is located; of long commute times to and from work; and of an uncertain future.
“It’s not fair that after 18 years of working for this hotel, we can’t count on a secure and adequate retirement,” de Castro said. “It’s not fair that we can’t count on a fair wage to be able to afford rent in the city where we work. That’s why I’m here today, to tell those airport bosses gathered inside that luxury hotel that we demand an increase to the minimum wage, but above all we demand to be treated with dignity and respect!”
UNITE HERE Local 11 Hospitality Workers Call on ALIS Conference Hotel Executives to Help Solve Housing Crisis
Demand Endorsement of Responsible Hotel Ordinance & Higher Wages to Afford Rent
“I live in Apple Valley with my husband, our two sons, and my mother. Los Angeles is in the middle of a housing crisis and the hotel industry is perpetuating the decrease in affordable housing. Even with 5 people in one household, I cannot afford to live closer to the JW Marriott L.A Live where I work. I sometimes only sleep 2-3 hours a night. This is no way to live.” said Brenda Mendoza, uniform attendant of 15 years.
“Although I welcome guests arriving into LAX every day, I cannot afford to live in Los Angeles. After my apartment building was brought up, my rent went from $925 to $1325 overnight. I have seen how so many senior citizens became homeless because they could not keep up with the rising cost of rent. I am barely hanging on.” said Eleanor Ramos, bartender at LAX for 26 years.
“I have to work two full time jobs and the only place I could afford a home in was California City. I sleep in my car in between jobs. How can anyone achieve the American dream if this is what it costs?” said Leticia, a housekeeper at the Glendale Hilton for 22 years.
UNITE HERE Local 11 contended that the hotel industry’s historically poverty wage jobs and its irresponsible hotel development, which does not prioritize housing concerns, contribute to working Angelenos’ inability to afford to live in Los Angeles.
“At the investment conference thousands of hotel executives are celebrating record profits because they are making more money than they were before the pandemic. Meanwhile the workers who make the industry prosperous have to live two hours away because they cannot afford to live where they work. The industry needs to help solve the housing crisis by paying a living wage and endorsing the Responsible Hotel ordinance.” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11.
The protesters also called on the hotel industry to raise wages so that working families can reside in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Hotel Minimum Wage is $18.86 an hour which means that a hotel worker would have to work 17 hours a day to afford a 2 bedroom apartment.
The protest follows Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors declaring a state of emergency on homelessness.
BREAKING NEWS: Pomona College and UNITE HERE Local 11 joint statement
CLAREMONT, California – Pomona College and UNITE HERE Local 11 have completed a four-year collective bargaining agreement delivering historic wage gains for the College’s dining and catering teams. By July 1, 2024, all team members will reach a minimum of $25 an hour. On average, the contract will provide a 36% increase over the four years, further raising the standards for food service workers in the region. The College’s Local 11 members overwhelmingly ratified the agreement in a vote on January 18.
Pomona College and UNITE HERE Local 11 issued this joint statement:
“We are pleased to move forward with an agreement that recognizes the excellence and dedication of the dining and catering employees represented by UNITE HERE Local 11. The agreement provides substantial wage increases and, for the first time, the College also will make contributions to the union’s Legal Services Fund and Hospitality Industry Training and Education Fund. The agreement offers the stability of a multi-year contract to support Local 11 members and their families in making strong wage gains in the face of rising costs of living in our region. Coming after nearly six months of negotiations, the agreement shows the commitment of both parties to work through the collective bargaining process for the benefit of UNITE HERE Local 11 members and the entire college community.”
UNITE HERE Local 11 is a labor union representing more than 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona that work in hotels, restaurants, universities, convention centers and airports.
Pomona College holds a unique place in creating opportunity in American higher education. It is one of a small number of colleges committed to need-blind admissions for domestic applicants and meeting the full demonstrated need of all students who enroll.