Down the street from Netflix headquarters, where WGA and SAG-AFTRA members are on strike, stands Gladys Avyla. Painted on her lips is bright red lipstick as she sports a yellow vest that reflects on her bright cherry earrings. She chants “sí se puede.” The phrase is commonly used by Latinx UFW union strikers, which translates to “yes we can.” It’s the third wave of hotel strikes in Los Angeles following hotel workers’ demands for higher wages and health insurance.
Avyla, who’s lived in Los Angeles since 2009, is an El Salvadoran immigrant who sends remittance back to her family in Central America. She supports her aunt and other family members there, who can’t afford, or don’t have access to jobs in El Salvador.
“There’s just not enough money, so it makes a big difference to be able to support them and send that money back,” Avyla said. “The other thing in El Salvador right now that’s been difficult for my family is it’s really hard to get jobs.”
The World Bank, an organization that tracks global remittance data, reported that El Salvador received $270 million in 2022 from U.S. residents. El Salvador’s current total GDP is $28 billion. Remittances from the United States to Central America are very common. In 2022 remittances grew 14% compared to 2021.
Avyla says that remittances are vital to supporting communities in laborers’ home counties. “It’s super essential because the jobs and the wages over there in our home countries are, it’s nothing. It doesn’t reach to survive.”
It’s been 11 years since Avyla started as a housekeeper at the W Hotel in Hollywood. Avyla says she’s striking because of a lack of access to good healthcare and her $25 an hour wage, which causes her to commute over an hour to work every day.
Avyla lives in Victorville, an outer suburb of Los Angeles. Most hotel workers we spoke to expressed that the cost of living in Los Angeles, in the area of their hotels, was too expensive. For comparison, an average hotel room at the W Hotel is $400 a night.
Down Sunset Blvd, in West Hollywood, workers are also striking at the One Hotel West Hollywood and the Andaz Hotel. Marcus Molina, a bakery assistant at One Hotel, decided to strike due to his lack of equitable pay. “This is one of the most expensive cities in the world. So they’re asking for $25 and better health benefits. And this, the 1% is saying no. Oh, that’s too much.”
Both hotels seem to be striking over a couple of fundamental issues: pay, work hours and benefits. Molina says that most workers are overworked, underpaid, and don’t understand their rights. “You know, a lot of these housekeepers, they don’t speak English. They’re scared. They don’t know their rights. They’re forced to do like twenty rooms in a day, and that’s too many, sometimes, but they’re scared to get fired. So they clock out early.”
Avyla, who spoke through a translator, a bi-lingual union leader, doesn’t speak English. It is a common issue amongst housekeepers and contributes to workplace literacy issues. Thomas Lenz, a Former National Labor Relations Board attorney and law professor at USC, echoes these issues. “I’m bilingual in Spanish, and I often found that there was a language gap, a lack of information, perhaps, getting to the employees or maybe a lack of understanding of the potential impact of something on the employees themselves,” he said.
Lenz says workers are generally unaware of their rights. In addition, laws are generally blurry when it comes to workplace retaliation. “One other thing that I think tends to maybe discourage strike activity generally is workplaces are able to hire replacement employees for employees who go on strike. Typically, when the strike ends, the employer needs to make a decision whether striking employees go back or the replacements do.” Lenz says that the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations have all tried to change policy on workplace replacement retaliation.
For people like Avyla, this pressure weighs heavily when they are unsure if they will ever return to work. Strikers are unpaid while striking, and strike funds tend to be limited in high-demand industries like Hospitality.
Both the W Hotel and its parent company, Marriott, did not respond to our request for comment. A manager for One Hotel Hollywood declined to comment.
But the vision of the strike doesn’t seem to be lost on the workers. Avyla was nothing but optimistic about getting their demands met. “I feel happy. It’s really powerful. It’s really exciting to be out here. It’s the first time it’s a big experience for us to be here, and I’m confident. I think we’re gonna win.”
Jaelyn Gonzalez contributed to this article.