LOS ANGELES : Employees at 8 Hotels Reject Contract Offer

About 4,600 union employees at eight downtown, San Fernando Valley and Westside hotels rejected a management contract offer and voted Thursday to begin staging nonviolent demonstrations next week at several hotels, union officials said.

Maria Elena Durazo, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local 11, said the voice vote by members was taken after the union’s collective bargaining agreement with the Los Angeles Hotel Employer’s Council expired at midnight Wednesday.

The union represents bartenders, bellmen, busboys, cooks, clerks, dishwashers, maids, waiters and telephone operators at the Century Plaza, Biltmore, Sheraton Town House, Sheraton Universal, Westin Bonaventure and Los Angeles Hilton hotels in Los Angeles and the Beverly Hilton and Beverly Wilshire hotels in Beverly Hills. Durazo declined to reveal which hotels will be targeted for demonstrations.