Arrests Fan Hotel’s Labor Dispute
A prolonged power struggle between a large hotel chain and a labor union that represents thousands of low-wage immigrant workers escalated Tuesday with the arrest of 11 union members who refused police orders to end a noisy demonstration in the lobby of the Hyatt Wilshire.
The demonstrators were among about 80 union officials and hotel workers from Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 11 who participated in a carefully planned civil disobedience action at the Mid-Wilshire hotel to draw attention to the union’s stalled contract talks with the Hyatt chain.
The outcome of the dispute is viewed as crucial by organized labor officials in Los Angeles. If Local 11 cannot force Hyatt to sign favorable contracts, it will lose steam in its long-term goal to organize maids, bellboys and other workers in nearly two dozen new hotels proposed for the downtown area.
Local 11, which has about 13,000 members, negotiated contracts with more than a dozen large downtown hotels last year through the Hotel-Restaurant Employers Council of Southern California. For the better part of this year, it has been unable to reach agreement on a renewed contract with the Chicago-based Hyatt chain, which does not belong to the employers council.
The primary sticking point is Hyatt’s desire for greater flexibility in setting work schedules, which the hotel chain says would allow it to accomplish the same amount of work with fewer part-time employees.
The union objects because the proposal would allow Hyatt to require some workers to work 10 consecutive days--the last five days of one week, followed by the first five days of the next week--without paying overtime.
Cody Plott, a Hyatt regional vice president, said Hyatt insists on work rules that differ from Local 11’s contract with the hotel employers council because Hyatt’s hotels are generally smaller. He said few employees would actually be required to work 10 straight days and accused the union of “negotiating in the press.”
Because of the dispute, 300 employees at the Hyatt Wilshire and Hyatt Sunset have been working without a contract for two months. About 450 employees at a third Hyatt, the downtown Regency, were laid off last summer when the hotel closed for an extensive renovation. The majority chose not to return to work in exchange for lump-sum severence payments. The Hyatt Regency reopened in early September with a combination of union and new non-union workers. The union’s contract there expires Nov. 6.
Local 11 has been hailed by labor leaders as a model of immigrant worker power. It is headed by the daughter of an immigrant field worker, Maria Elena Durazo, who led a rank-and-file campaign last year to oust long-entrenched Anglo administrators of the union. Last December, Local 11 negotiated a new contract with the hotel employers group that resulted in what union officials called the largest wage increases the local had received in two decades. For instance, maids, who now earn $5.77 an hour, won raises of $1.50 over three years.
To labor leaders, the campaign illustrated the potential for increased unionization in industries with large immigrant work forces during an era in which hundreds of thousands of workers have gained legal status under the government’s amnesty program.
The union’s membership potential also gives it political clout. During last spring’s mayoral campaign, Mayor Tom Bradley pledged to help the union by saying his Administration would encourage developers and owners of new hotels to sign “neutrality agreements,” which promised that management will not interfere when union organizers move in to sign up employees.
Unions contend that when employers provide a neutral environment, free of harassment or implied threats, union organizing campaigns are usually successful.
Another reason that the Hyatt dispute is being carefully watched by labor officials is a so-called “most-favored nations” clause in Local 11’s contract with the hotel employers group. According to this clause, if the union signs a contract with another party that contains conditions more favorable to employers, it must grant the same concession to members of the hotel employers group.
“The union is in a real dangerous position,” said William Robertson, executive secretary of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and a former bartender who has been a member of the hotel workers union for decades.
Since March, representatives of Local 11 have engaged in a variety of public efforts to embarrass Hyatt.
Workers have given hotel guests mass “wake-up calls” by banging drums in front of the hotels at 6:30 a.m. They brought their children to work on Mother’s Day, instructing them to carry mops and sponges while marching in front of the Hyatt Wilshire. In August, about 500 union members crowded inside the Broadway Plaza shopping center, adjacent to the lobby of the Hyatt Regency, for a rally attended by several Latino politicians.
That rally sparked a hearing two weeks ago in Los Angeles by the Assembly Labor Committee. Calling Hyatt’s proposal exploitative, a parade of Hyatt employees complained that state law should be changed to require overtime after seven straight days.
Irving Baldwin, executive director of the hotel employers group, told the hearing that no hotel in his association has sought Hyatt’s 10-straight-day proposal. With competent management and scheduling, he said, there should be no need for employees to work 10 straight days.
Police moved in on Tuesday’s protest shortly after demonstrators moved from outside the Hyatt Wilshire to the lobby. Most guests quickly fled the lobby, startled by the noise of the protest, which took place under a crystal chandelier.
When police issued an order to disperse, 11 women, including Local 11 President Durazo, refused to go. They were quietly handcuffed and led out of the hotel by officers, who booked them on charges of trespassing. Times staff writers Jonathan Gaw and John Lee contributed to this story.
NEXT STEP If the stalemate between Hyatt and the union continues, the hotel workers union has two basic choices. It can continue working without a contract or it can strike the three Hyatts. If there is a strike, Hyatt probably will hire replacement workers, leaving the union to rely on other pressure tactics to produce a settlement. An example is a letter that was sent to Hyatt recently by nine Los Angeles City Council members, who warned the chain that its participation in new downtown development could be hindered unless it commits itself to “employees’ basic rights.”
