Hotels to Lock Out Workers

A spokesman for seven prominent Los Angeles hotels said Friday that a lockout of union employees would begin at 5 a.m. today in response to a strike by about 120 union workers that began Thursday at the Hyatt West Hollywood.

Fred Muir, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Hotel Employer’s Council, said the hotel owners would honor a commitment among themselves to lock out about 2,400 members of Unite Here Local 11 at all of the hotels involved in labor contract negotiations in the event of a strike called against any of them.

Hilda Delgado, a spokeswoman for Local 11, said the threat of a lockout would not result in a broader strike. “We purposefully chose the smallest hotel because we know the damage a strike can do,” Delgado said.

Unite Here members continued to picket Friday outside the Hyatt West Hollywood.

The other hotels involved in the talks are the Westin Century Plaza, Sheraton Universal, Wilshire Grand, Millennium Biltmore, Regent Beverly Wilshire and Westin Bonaventure.

The two sides have been at odds over contract terms since April 2004. The biggest disagreement is the length of the contract. The union wants a short contract that would expire in 2006, as do hotel contracts in other cities.

The hotels have offered a four-year, 22% wage increase that they say will remain on the table through midnight Saturday.