Remembrance of Karine Mansoorian

It is with much sadness that we share the news that Karine Mansoorian, Local 11’s Chief Negotiator, passed away on October 29, 2026. 

Karine started out as a rank-and-file member in the early 1980’s at the Smokehouse Restaurant in Burbank. Ultimately, workers there won the union after a brutal campaign. Karine never lost her fighting spirit over the four decades that she spent with our union.

Many members will know Karine from contract negotiations at the JW Marriott, Dodgers, LA Convention Center, Beverly Hilton, Crypto Arena, and even shops in Arizona like the Hilton at the Peak and HMS Host at Sky Harbor Airport. Her sharpness with numbers was only matched by her sharp tongue at the table. Workers loved watching her go toe-to-toe with the employers.

Karine has negotiated a contract at every hotel in Local 11. Notably, in 2004, Karine bargained for a full year to win contracts for 8 hotels with the Employers’ Council. The main goal was to line up with other cities such as San Francisco and Chicago to expire all at the same time to fight for greater power. We won everything we were asking for at that time. And she did the same thing again most recently in 2023, this time across dozens of hotels. Karine was a pioneer in negotiating, winning pathways for workers to join Local 11, even before their workplaces were built.

Karine’s passion for the movement and fighting spirit translated into material change for Local 11’s members. The contracts that she negotiated with our employers are worth hundreds of millions of dollars in wages, health care, and pension for our members.

Karine even shared her family with the union; she is survived by her siblings, including her brother Karen Mansoorian and his wife, Jennifer Skurnik, who both work for the UNITE HERE International Union.

May Karine find peace and may we honor her memory by carrying on what she started decades ago.