AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka addressed a boisterous rally of 500 hotel workers Thursday evening in front of the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel.
Hotel workers called on Hyatt to sign a fair contract as soon possible. If management didn’t hear the workers’ message, then onlookers and hotels guests most certainly did. Chants of “Rich and rude, we don’t like your attitude” echoed off the ritzy hotel in Century City. Guests stood from their balconies to watch.
“I have a message from the 11.5 million members of AFL-CIO unions across our country — we are with you in your struggle,” Trumka said, eliciting thunderous applause from the crowd. “And we will be standing with you and fighting with you until we bring the Hyatt Regency and the Hyatt Andaz and every hotel in Los Angeles to justice.”
Trumka, in his first Los Angeles appearance since he was elected president last year, rallied and picketed with the hotel workers union, UniteHere Local 11. Contracts at two LA Hyatt hotels, the Andaz in West Hollywood and the Regency Century Plaza in Century City, expired on Nov. 30, 2009, leaving more than 800 hotel workers without a contract. Negotiations are underway.
This is a pivotal year for hotel workers, one that will decide whether tourism jobs in the Los Angeles are poverty jobs or good middle class jobs with living wages, health benefits and retirement security. Nearly 5,000 hotel workers are currently without a contract.
The poster child for hotelier greed is Hyatt, whose employees suffer from the highest injury rates in the industry. Despite staggering profits — Hyatt made more than $1.3 billion in profit from 2004 to 2008 — the company used the poor economy as an excuse to fire 100 Boston housekeepers. They were replaced with $8-an-hour contract employees.
“We are happy to take on Hyatt first because they took the lead in taking on their workers,” Trumka said.
The crowd, comprised of hotel workers and other union members in the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, also heard from Benjamin Leonen, a lead cook at the Hyatt Regency Long Beach. Leonen and his co-workers are fighting to win union representation in Long beach.
Understaffing and has led to unmanageable workloads, the cook of eight years said. Leonen became gravely ill when he was cooking three things at once. He was rushed, and went inside a walk-in freeze to grab something.
When he got home, his whole body ached.
“By that night, I hurt so badly, I could not move,” he said.
Leonen spent the next three days in bed. When he saw the doctor, he was told he was ill from the sudden drop of body temperature when he left the sweltering kitchen for the ice cold freezer.
Leonen had to miss the next two weeks of work. Despite his doctor’s note, “Hyatt did not believe me,” he said. “They said my injuries were not related to work.”
Rhina Gonzalez, a housekeeper at the Century Plaza, reminded rally participants of the hard work housekeepers are asked to do.
“We are the gasoline that makes this hotel run,” Gonzalez said. “Cleaning up after guests, we lift heavy pillow-top mattresses, change the sheets, vacuum the floors and push heavy carts from room to room. It’s hard work, and it’s hard on our bodies.”
Tourism has become Los Angeles’ No. 1 industry. Economists consider this an indication of how weak the Los Angeles economy has become, since most hotels pay substandard wages and do not provide benefits, UniteHere Local 11 President Tom Walsh noted.
“It doesn’t have to be that way,” he said.
By working and fighting together, hotel workers can make tourism jobs good middle-class jobs, Trumka said.
“If there’s one thing I know, it is this: a job is a good job because working people fight to make it one,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if the job is in a coal mine or a hotel, a classroom or a car wash.
“And we intend to FIGHT,” Trumka continued, “by insisting that Hyatt and other hotel owners agree to safer workload standards to stop the injuries, to stop the pain. And to provide livable wages and affordable benefits so that hotel workers can take care of themselves and their families just like all workers in America want to do.
“That’s our challenge, that’s our goal. Working together and standing together and fighting together to make Los Angeles not only a top tourist attraction, but a good and decent place to live and work.”
Earlier in the day, Trumka met with apprentices at the Electrical Workers Training Institute in the City of Commerce. The cutting edge facility prepares workers for outside electrical work, home wiring and other skills, with an emphasis on green jobs. IBEW intensive training is one of many things that separates union labor from non-union labor.
Trumka heard from a student who was once in jail and homeless. The student is now about to become a journey and begin a career that will lift him into the middle class.
“Hats off to these IBEW members!” Trumka wrote on his Facebook page.
Related:
Trumka Visits Orange County Federation of Labor
L.A. Hotel Worker Rally Caps off Trumka’s California Jobs and Justice Tour
