Westin employees in Long Beach strike for higher wages

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Diving certificate:

• Union members at the Westin Long Beach hotel in Long Beach, California, walked off the job on Saturday, just days after workers voted to strike, the hotel union Unite Here Local 11 announced in a press release obtained by Hotel Dive.
• Workers said the hotel has not yet signed a collective bargaining agreement that would raise wages and improve working conditions, as more than 60 Southern California hotels have already signed. Private equity firms Rockpoint and Highgate own the Westin Long Beach, and Highgate operates the hotel.
• The strike came almost a year to the day after the largest wave of hotel strikes in modern U.S. history began in Southern California. While dozens of local hotels have since reached agreements with striking employees, many are still in negotiations.

Diving insight:

On July 2, housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers, front desk clerks, waiters and other employees at the Westin Long Beach voted to strike the hotel. They went on strike on July 6.

The workers are pushing for a contract that “guarantees wages that keep pace with rising housing costs, maintains affordable benefits and assigns them a reasonable workload,” Unite Here Local 11 said in a separate press release obtained by Hotel Dive.

Westin Long Beach has not yet signed a contract that meets workers’ demands and has instead proposed “a second-class contract compared to what colleagues (at Westin Long Beach) have achieved,” said Kurt Petersen, co-chair of Unite Here Local 11. “The workers will not stand for this,” he added.

“I voted for the strike because I deserve to make enough money to live close to where I work,” Juana Melara, who has worked as a chambermaid at the Westin Long Beach for 10 years, said in a statement. “We work in the same economy as the other hotels (that have agreements), and this is the contract that all the other hotels have. We at the Westin Long Beach deserve it too.”

At other area hotels, including the nearby Grand Prix of Long Beach and the Hotel Maya Long Beach, union contracts guaranteed workers a $5-an-hour raise in the first year of their contracts and, for non-tipped workers, raises of 40 to 50 percent over the course of the contract.

Since the strike began last July, more than 40 hotels in the area have finalized their contracts, but negotiations are still ongoing at other hotels, including the Embassy Suites Irvine, Hilton Garden Inn LAX/El Segundo, Hyatt Regency LAX and LA Grand Hotel, according to the Unite Here Local 11 website.

Southern California is not the only region where labor disputes continue to rage in the hospitality industry. Thousands of hotel workers across the country, including at major companies such as Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt, are currently demanding higher wages and better working conditions.

According to the American Hotel & Lodging Association, U.S. hotels are expected to pay their employees $123 billion in wages, salaries and other compensation in 2024. However, hoteliers are still struggling to fill open positions.