No End to New Otani Dispute

The protracted labor dispute at the New Otani Hotel & Garden in Los Angeles eluded resolution Monday, as the hotel’s Tokyo management--in a long-awaited meeting with two of its L.A.-based employees--rejected requests to rehire three fired workers and meet directly with union officials.

And in a sign of widening links among labor organizations, Japan’s largest trade union agreed to support the Los Angeles delegation’s protest and publicize a boycott of the hotel, the bulk of whose customers are Japanese business travelers.

“We believe that the New Otani must agree to stop its anti-union campaign and undo the considerable damage that campaign has already caused,” said the statement issued Monday by the Rengo labor federation, which represents more than 8 million members. The group decided to support its Los Angeles compatriots after a June fact-finding mission to Little Tokyo.

The Rengo support was the latest weapon unleashed against the New Otani on its own home turf in Tokyo. Since Friday, a Los Angeles delegation of hotel workers, Little Tokyo community representatives and union leaders from Local 11 of the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union has picketed and pamphleted here.

They’ve spoken out in press conferences, with photographers snapping shots of a tearful Ana Alvarado--a former maid fired after 16 years of service--describing the pain of not being able to feed her children. They’ve met with U.S. Ambassador Walter Mondale and huddled with top Japanese labor leaders.

Charles Ecker, the New Otani consultant in Los Angeles, dismissed the actions as the desperate tactics of a union pitching a losing cause: “The reason they went to Japan is because hardly anyone is paying attention to them anymore in Little Tokyo.”