Hotel Locks Out Laundry Workers
The contract standoff between a union and nine Los Angeles County hotels escalated Thursday after the Wilshire Grand locked out its laundry employees and quickly filled their jobs with replacement workers.
At 6 a.m., 17 members of the Unite Here union learned that they had washed and folded their last bedsheets, tablecloths and towels for the downtown Los Angeles hotel. As for the 55-year-old hotel’s laundry, it didn’t skip a beat.
“We brought in replacement workers. We had them all lined up in case this happened,” said Wilshire Grand general manager John Stoddard, one of the most vocal members of the Los Angeles Hotel Employers Council, which has handled the 7-month-old contract negotiations with the union.
The laundry workers are among more than 100 members of Local 52 of the Union of Needlestick, Industrial and Textile Employees, which recently merged with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, creating the union Unite Here.
The union and the hotels have been negotiating since March for a contract to cover 2,800 hotel and restaurant employees of another Unite Here group, Local 11.
The Local 11 workers on Monday gave their union the authority to strike, as did hotel unions in San Francisco and Washington. And a lawsuit was filed Thursday by some workers at two of the local hotels -- the St. Regis and the Westin Century Plaza -- accusing them of failing to give workers mandatory meal and rest breaks.
At the Wilshire Grand, Stoddard said he replaced the laundry workers because he couldn’t risk an expensive planned upgrade of the aging laundry operation without the assurance of a long-term contract and a reliable workforce. He said he took the action knowing that it might prompt a strike in support of laundry workers.
Cristina Vazquez, deputy administrator of Local 52 and western regional manager of Unite Here, called the ouster an illegal lockout, though she said she wasn’t asking for a strike.
“For them to do this is just outrageous,” said Vazquez, noting that her local was negotiating a separate contract for laundry workers with several of the hotels, including the Wilshire Grand, on Wednesday.
Maria Elena Durazo, president of Unite Here Local 11, said its 2,800 workers would strike if asked. The hotel is “trying to provoke a citywide dispute,” Durazo said.
One of the laundry employees, Rosa Olivares, has been on the Wilshire Grand payroll for 32 years and said she felt betrayed. “Through all of those years, I have been an excellent worker,” said Olivares, 57.
Stoddard said Olivares and the others could return to their jobs if they agreed to a new contract. He also said that their being replaced with temporary workers wouldn’t trigger an agreement forged by the nine hotels in which they each would lock out union employees if certain conditions were met.
Along with the Wilshire Grand, the hotels are the Hyatt Regency Los Angeles, Hyatt West Hollywood, Millennium Biltmore, Regent Beverly Wilshire, Sheraton Universal, St. Regis, Westin Bonaventure and Westin Century Plaza.
In Washington, negotiators for 14 major hotels walked out of contract negotiations Wednesday with the union that represents 3,800 employees. No new talks were scheduled there or in Los Angeles.
The locals in those two cities and in San Francisco have been trying to negotiate a two-year contract to align themselves with six other cities and Hawaii. That would give them more clout against the national hotel chains in 2006, when the contracts expire. Federal mediators have been working with the union and the hotels in all three cities.
