LOS ANGELES : Hotel, Restaurant Employees Protest Working Conditions
Hundreds of tourism workers, community activists and union organizers staged protests Downtown on Thursday to denounce what they call exploitative conditions at Los Angeles-area hotels and restaurants.
Directing actions was Local 11 of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, which is engaged in a high-profile campaign to organize area tourism workers, mostly immigrants from Mexico and Central America. The union seeks higher wages, improved benefits and better job conditions for low-wage workers, including room attendants and waiters.
Among other actions, protesters Thursday issued a symbolic “red card” to the Sheraton Grande hotel Downtown, which is among the prinicipal targets of unionization efforts. (In international soccer, players issued red cards for playing dirty face suspension for one or more games.)
Joyce Johnson, a Sheraton spokesman, denied that management had pressured workers not to join the union or engaged in any improper activity.
Protesters later marched past the New Otani Hotel, where the unionization fight has sparked confrontations between management and union activists.
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