Ex-Workers Accuse Vendor of Thwarting Union Efforts

Former workers hurling allegations that an airport food concessionaire has tried to keep his employees from unionizing by firing them packed the room where the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners met Tuesday.

They asked the board to take action against Andy Camacho, owner of the El Paseo Cafe in Terminal One of Los Angeles International Airport, who won a contract last year to open an eatery in the airport’s effort to diversify the food concession business dominated by Host International.

Host International, which still has concessions at the airport, had an exclusive food and beverage contract since 1978 and has always employed union workers.

One of the dismissed workers, Nelly Gonzales, told the board that she had been fired by Camacho for signing a union card with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union Local 814 to get better wages and benefits. She signed her union card Nov. 17 and was fired three days later, she said. Altogether, 11 workers at El Paseo Cafe have been fired, allegedly for trying to unionize, said Tom Walsh, a union representative for Local 814.

Camacho did not return a call to his office.

Board President Daniel P. Garcia said the commissioners would monitor developments in the dispute between Camacho and the union, whose members have repeatedly picketed Camacho’s airport restaurant and his other eateries: Mariasol restaurant on the Santa Monica Pier, El Paseo Inn on Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles and Camacho’s Cantina on CityWalk in Universal Studios. But Garcia maintained that the board has no jurisdiction in resolving employee-employer disputes.

The National Labor Relations Board, which investigated the firings, has ordered Camacho to go before one of its administrative law judges July 29 to answer the employees’ allegations.

Last year, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to give contracts to seven new food and beverage providers. The new concessionaires--McDonald’s, Andy Camacho, Creative Croissants, Hamada, Sushi Boy, Eruotal and CA One Services--were expected to broaden the food offerings.