BREAKING NEWS: Westin Bonaventure First to Reach Deal As Historic Strike Looms for Dozens of SoCal Hotels
Los Angeles, CA: A day before contracts covering 15,000 hotel workers expire, the Westin Bonaventure hotel, Los Angeles’ largest hotel, reached a historic agreement with its workers.
“With these extraordinary raises, I will no longer have to choose between paying my rent and putting food on the table for my family,” said Nancy Cerrato, general clean public areas, housekeeping department. “We have given our lives to this industry. We deserve respect and to be able to afford to live in the city where we work.”
The Westin Bonaventure emerges as the leader in fair wages and benefits for its workers while dozens of hotels including the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton LA Live, Beverly Hilton, Fairmont Miramar, and Anaheim Hilton continue to drag their feet after months of negotiations.
A strike could be called as early as the 4th of July weekend for the remaining hotel properties across Southern California.
Once the contract is ratified, the 600 workers at the Bonaventure will enjoy:
- Unprecedented wage increases to keep pace with the soaring cost of housing in Southern California
- Affordable, excellent family healthcare
- Humane and safe staffing that will return jobs and hours to pre-pandemic levels
- Pension contribution increases so that workers can retire with dignity
- Numerous improvements, including historic Equal Justice language that, among other things, will provide access to union jobs for formerly incarcerated individuals and ban the use of E-Verify in hiring.
“We applaud the Westin Bonaventure and Peter Zen for putting the workers and our city first,” said Kurt Petersen, Co-President of UNITE HERE Local 11. “LA is the world’s most important tourist destination, with the World Cup and Olympics coming back to back in 2026 and 2028. This agreement takes steps ensuring that workers who work in LA will be able to live in LA. Now the rest of the industry needs to step up. If they continue to be greedy and short-sighted, workers will strike.”