Dive Brief:
- Three hundred protesters, including two Los Angeles City Council members, were arrested Thursday near Los Angeles International Airport, according to CBS Los Angeles. The demonstrators were gathering to protest hotel wages amid concerns about the rising cost of housing in Southern California.
- Members of the country’s largest hospitality union held a sit-in on Century Boulevard, blocking traffic near LAX for roughly three hours, according to the airport’s Twitter updates. The demonstrations were peaceful.
- Earlier this month, members of Unite Here Local 11 voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, which could start as early as the July 4 holiday weekend. If it happens, the strike will be the largest hotel worker strike in U.S. history.
Dive Insight:
Los Angeles City Council members Hugo Soto-Martínez and Nithya Raman and California Assembly member Wendy Carrillo were among the protesters arrested on Century Boulevard Thursday.
“We’re ready to do what it takes — including risking arrest in mass acts of non-violent civil disobedience & going on strike — to ensure we can live with dignity in the cities where we work,” Unite Here Local 11 tweeted as the gathering began.
Contracts for hotel workers represented by Unite Here Local 11 will expire June 30, according to a release obtained by Hotel Dive ahead of the rally. Employers — including Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group, Hilton and Marriott — have yet to respond to workers’ calls for increased benefits.
Local 11 is seeking to create a hospitality workforce housing fund to assist those who can’t afford the cost of living in Los Angeles. According to a survey conducted by the union, 53% of workers said they had either moved in the past five years or will move in the near future because of soaring housing costs. Many already commute hours to Los Angeles.
It’s also calling on employers to implement better wages, healthcare benefits, pensions and safer workloads.
Unite Here Local 11 held multiple training sessions in advance of the rally to teach workers peaceful civil disobedience strategies.
A similar act of civil disobedience took place on Century Boulevard in 2006, when hotel workers staged sit-ins to protest hotels’ treatment of immigrant workers. At the time, a similar number of people were arrested, according to the Los Angeles Times. Arrests were coordinated in advance with the cooperation of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Arrests were peaceful and demonstrations remained nonviolent. “We're here to ensure a safe environment for everyone exercising their First Amendment rights. We appreciate the peaceful nature of the demonstration and remain committed to public safety,” the Los Angeles Police Department tweeted.
Unite Here Local 11 represents more than 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona. Its recent strike vote was the culmination of months of heightened union activity in the region.
In April, Los Angeles City Council members introduced a motion to raise the minimum wage to $25 for hospitality and tourism workers. And in recent months, other California municipalities — including West Hollywood and Culver City — have either debated or enacted ordinances to protect hotel workers. This week, Marriott was sued for allegedly offloading the costs of complying with Los Angeles’ Hotel Worker Protection Ordinance onto hotel guests.
Representatives of Hyatt, IHG, Hilton and Marriott did not respond to Hotel Dive’s request for comment.
