L.A. County Hotel Workers Plan Strike Vote
The hotel workers union said Wednesday that it would vote next week to authorize a strike against nine prominent Los Angeles County hotels, further heightening tensions in their protracted contract dispute.
A strike authorization in Monday’s vote could give the union additional leverage against the hotels, which have a mutual-support pact that requires all of them to lock out union workers if the union strikes just one hotel.
The union, called Unite Here, said it was prepared to financially support its 2,900 local members through a walkout. The hotels said they had contingency plans to maintain operations during a work stoppage.
“We are not announcing a date for a strike. We want the rank and file negotiating committee to be given the authorization,” said Maria Elena Durazo, president of Local 11 of Unite Here in Los Angeles. Durazo said she expected the bellmen, housekeepers, banquet servers and other employees eligible to vote to strongly back a strike.
“Our members just can’t reach into a bank account, but they have an extraordinary level of courage and community that can help make up for that.... This is an issue of dignity,” she said.
Contract talks have made scant progress since resuming last month under supervision of a top federal mediator, both sides have said. Negotiations are in a weeklong recess while mediator Peter J. Hurtgen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, is in San Francisco to meet with hotel and union officials involved in their own dispute there. That city’s 4,000 union hotel workers also have scheduled a strike authorization vote for next week.
Los Angeles negotiations began in March but have been hung up largely over one issue: contract length.
The union wants a two-year pact that would expire in 2006 along with contracts in several other large cities, giving the union national negotiating clout. The hotels, which include such elite properties as the Westin Century Plaza and Millennium Biltmore, have said they would not accept anything less than a five-year accord.
The union also is seeking terms that would ease the workload of hotel housekeepers.
A spokesman for the hotel council involved in the negotiations said Wednesday that the properties were prepared for a walkout, but offered few details.
“We hope there is not a strike, but if there is, the hotels will be prepared to operate,” the spokesman said. “We’re still committed to bargaining at the table, and we hope that a contract can be achieved.”
Experts differ on the likely outcomes of a walkout. One veteran hotel executive said workers could be easily replaced and that a strike would only be a temporary inconvenience to travelers. But a labor historian countered that the hotels could lose considerable business.
