Latina Will Head Hotel Workers Union

Maria Elena Durazo has been elected president of the 12,000-member hotel and restaurant workers union local in Los Angeles, becoming the first Latina to head a major union local in California, officials said Thursday.

Durazo, 36, won 85% of the vote in the two-day balloting by members of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, Local 11, which represents workers at major hotels and more than 140 restaurants.

The union’s Latino majority was effectively blocked from taking an active role in the local’s affairs until two years ago because, among other things, the entrenched leadership would not conduct meetings in both English and Spanish, officials said.

The union’s parent international organization placed the local in trusteeship in 1987 because of declining membership and alleged irregular procedures used in conducting meetings, officials said. Durazo’s election ends that trusteeship.

She had been the local’s staff director, with responsibility for developing rank-and-file leadership and forming committees to negotiate labor agreements.