After a five-day pause, hotel workers in Los Angeles are back on the picket lines Monday morning in what Unite Here Local 11 calls the second wave of an ongoing strike.
Workers walked off the job at the Sheraton Gateway Hotel near Los Angeles International Airport. Lilia Sotelo told KNX News that she and her colleagues are fighting for higher wages to accompany the increased workload they’ve faced since the pandemic.
“We’re working harder, the workload is more, and it’s not enough, the payment,” she said.
Unite Here Local 11 represents up to 15,000 workers at 60 major hotels in L.A. and Orange counties. The union’s contract expired on July 1, after failing to reach a deal with the hotel coalition on wage and benefit increases.
On July 2, thousands of workers at 21 hotels in downtown L.A. and Santa Monica struck for three days over the Fourth of July weekend. They returned to work on July 5, with union leaders warning that more walkouts could occur at any time.
"No worker should have to sleep in their car between shifts because they cannot afford to live in Los Angeles," union Co-President Kurt Petersen said in a statement Monday. "Workers are striking because they believe that all workers in this city -- whether you teach, write, act, or clean hotel rooms -- deserve a wage that allows them to live with dignity in Los Angeles. The hotel industry is flush with cash. Room rates are soaring. The industry's greed makes workers unable to live in the city where they work."
Union officials said their members currently earn $20 to $25 an hour. They're asking for an immediate $5 raise, and an additional $3 in subsequent years of the contract, along with improvements in health care and retirement benefits.
City News Service contributed to this report.
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