New Hotel Target of Job Protests : Labor: Demonstrators want vote on union and hiring priority for workers displaced by riots.

As hundreds of applicants waited in line outside a new downtown hotel for job interviews Wednesday, about 25 union demonstrators demanded that management immediately allow employees to vote on whether to unionize.

The protesters from Local 11 of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, joined by representatives from several community organizations, demonstrated in front of the Inter-Continental Hotel in Bunker Hill’s California Plaza.

The applicants waiting in line were hoping for one of 150 new jobs in the hotel, which is scheduled to open in December.

“Two years ago, the hotel promised to enter into a neutrality agreement that would let workers choose whether they would be represented,” said Maria Elena Durazo, president of Local 11. “But now they have reneged on that agreement.”

The hotel, part of the publicly funded Bunker Hill redevelopment project, was built on land leased from the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency. The Museum of Contemporary Art and trendy shops share the California Plaza space.

City Councilman Mike Hernandez said hotel owners have a responsibility as part of a public project to take steps to rebuild the city economically and socially.

“People were moved out of Bunker Hill and public funds were used to build there,” Hernandez said, “so it’s important to make sure the hotel is open to everyone.”

Representatives of groups including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, El Rescate, the Central American Refugee Center and El Centro del Pueblo said job priority must be given to residents of communities hit hard by April’s unrest, as well as to workers who were recently laid off or lost their jobs in the riots.

Local 11 has threatened Inter-Continental Hotels, a subsidiary of Japanese-owned Saison Group, with a potentially bitter union organizing drive if the company does not respond to its demand for a vote.

Hotel officials Wednesday offered to meet with the union in mid-November after new employees are hired and trained.

“We firmly believe the employees should choose whether they should be represented by unions or not,” said James Manley, a regional vice president for the hotel chain, which operates more than 100 hotels worldwide. “We’ve consistently said we should meet--once the employees are on board.”

The labor and community leaders charged that the hotel has not agreed to affirmative-action hiring goals and has not committed to hiring residents of disadvantaged communities for a variety of jobs.

Durazo also challenged the hotel not to segregate Latinos and African-Americans in low-paying, menial jobs.