Personal Plights Are Not Hotels’ Problems

Reading “Hotel Workers in L.A., D.C. Cast Strike Votes” (Sept. 14), I couldn’t believe the story about Miguel Vasquez Jr. and the sympathetic tone in which it described his plight.

This man has chosen to have five children without thinking of the means to support them. He is forced to work two jobs doing menial labor at the hotels to support his wife and kids, and this is supposed to be reason for businesses to increase his compensation?

When will liberals stop trying to eliminate the consequences of poor decisions by irresponsible people?

John Y. Oh

Los Angeles

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What puzzles me is why these hotels, which charge $300 to $500 a night for a well-heeled clientele willing to pay those rates, find it so hard to begrudge their lowest-paid workers that extra dollar for the hour to clean the room, to wash the sheets and to deliver their patrons’ bags?

Raise the room rate five bucks a night and it won’t make a difference to these customers, and you keep the workforce that makes this elegant stay possible, motivated and happy.

This is the same corporate elite that goes whining to their board or their stockholders with that common litany: “We can’t get anybody good enough to run this place without shoving an extra $3 million in their face.”

Maude Ham

Burbank