Maritza Morales works as an office coordinator at a hotel that costs upward of $1,300 per night for a standard room, yet she can barely afford her monthly rent in South Los Angeles.
The inequality she’s experiencing is why she marched through the streets of downtown L.A. Wednesday morning with more than 2,000 fellow hotel workers from dozens of hotels experiencing similar conditions.
Hotels represented Wednesday included the Fairmont Miramar, 1 Hotel, Pasadena Hilton, Hyatt Pasadena, the Beverly Wilshire, where Morales works, and several more.
The march marked the latest activity in a series of one-day workers strikes against hotel management that has included more than 50 L.A.-area hotels since July. Wednesday’s march for higher wages and better benefits was described by the union as its most widespread action to date.
“We have to make them understand that we are united, and we’re going to keep pressuring them until they sign,” said Morales.
On Wednesday, Morales stood beside her fellow red-T-shirt clad employees who are part of a hotel workers union called Unite Here Local 11, which represents around 15,000 workers employed at major hotels in L.A. and Orange County. Members include workers from cooks and dishwashers to room attendants and front desk agents.
Strikers held signs that said “workers need a raise,” “homes not hotels” and “rent is too damn high” with Spanish translations on the other side. Strikers chanted in English and Spanish.
Morales said workers at the Wilshire are asking for a 40% increase in hourly wages to keep up with the rising cost of living in L.A. With her current wage of $25 per hour, a 40% increase would move Morales’ pay up to $35 per hour. Most workers at union hotels make $20 to $25 an hour.
“We cannot live with the wage we have at all,” said Morales. “You have to have somebody else to help you out to live here and pay rent.”
Morales said she lives with her five children and multiple grandchildren, some of whom have jobs of their own to help pay rent and put food on the table.
An organizer with Unite Here Local 11, Maria Hernandez, said she will stand by hotel workers for as long as it takes.
“They mean business,” said Hernandez. “The hotels need to see that, but they also need to hear that because they’re clearly not listening at the negotiating table.”
The Coordinated Bargaining Group, which represents more than 44 local hotels on the executives’ side, said union officials remain “unwilling to engage in actual good-faith negotiations,” calling the union inflexible in its demands.
“Instead, the Union appears to want to continue to hurt Los Angeles and negatively impact our employees by continuing its Los Angeles boycott and its intermittent work stoppages,” said Kieth Grossman, a spokesperson for CBG, in a statement released Tuesday.
Grossman also said the current round of work stoppages is “misguided and hurts employees who are expressing their displeasure with Unite Here Local 11′s tactics.”
“Its inflexibility and insistence on all its demands will not end this labor dispute or get employees what they are asking for,” said Grossman.
In turn, Morales criticized hotels’ willingness to hire expensive lawyers like Grossman to defend them at the bargaining table instead of coming to terms with employees’ demands.
“They’re willing to pay them in order to not give us what we want,” said Morales. “Without our labor, there won’t be hotels at all.”
Local and state government officials joined Wednesday’s strike as well, including Maria Elena Durazo, the California State Senator representing L.A.
“Today is a very important day to show the hotel industry and everyone in the community that these workers will not give up,” said Durazo in an exclusive interview with Annenberg Media. “They don’t want to end up on the street as homeless families. We can’t stop homelessness if people can’t pay the rent.”
Despite the ongoing strikes, some major hotels have been able to come to agreements, however, just a handful of hotels have reached agreements with the CBG.
In September, the Millennium Biltmore reached a tentative agreement and the Westin Bonaventure reached a labor deal with employees. More recently, Loews Hotel reached a tentative agreement with its striking workers.
“If they can come to an agreement and give the workers what they’re asking for, what’s stopping these hotels from doing the same thing?” Hernandez questioned.
Despite their tentative deal, some employees from the Biltmore still stood in solidarity with the union on Wednesday, according to Biltmore General Manager Jimmy Wu, who walked out of the nearby Biltmore to see what was happening with the strike but was not participating.
“I cannot join them, but my heart goes with them,” said Wu.
For Morales, she’s willing to strike as long as it takes.
“I know they have the money. They can do it.”