Protest to Key on Wages Paid at LAX Hotel

Worker Profiles

For over 20 years, Isabel “Segunda” Brentner has worked at the LAX Hilton, keeping her focus on her family and her job. “My priorities [were] to help my family,” says Brentner, who, along with raising her own children, cared for both her father and grandmother when they were ill. More

Enedina Alvarez, a 54-year-old single parent, says she must be both mother and father to her teenage children. Yet, with two jobs, she has barely enough money to house, feed and clothe them—and precious little time to spend with them. Although she receives health insurance through her job, she cannot afford to insure her children. Alvarez says, “I pray to God that my kids do not get sick because I cannot pay the medical bills.” More

Who Are Hotel Housekeepers?*

Nearly all hotel housekeepers are women. The majority are women of color and immigrants.

There are 1.3 million hotel workers in the U.S. and 280,000 in Canada, of whom approximately one quarter are housekeepers.

Hotel Housekeeper Work Is Dangerous Work

Hotel workers have a 40% higher injury rate (5.9%) than workers in the service sector (4.2%).

According to a recent study of company records covering thousands of employee injuries, hotel housekeepers face an injury rate of 10.4%, almost double the injury rate for non-housekeepers (5.6%).

Hotel housekeeper injuries are debilitating. Back injuries, housemaids' knee (bursitis), and shoulder pain can lead to permanent disability.

*UNITE HERE

Why We Need A

"PLAN FOR A
NEW CENTURY"

A new white paper calls on the city of Los Angeles and industry leaders to invest in the Century Corridor and its workforce. A Plan for a New Century will benefit workers, communities, hotels and the entire city. More

Protest to Key on Wages Paid at
LAX Hotel
Daily Breeze - September 26, 2006
By Rachel Uranga

Trying to fuse their union organizing efforts with the country's immigration debate, activists plan Thursday to stage a rush-hour protest near LAX to protest what they claim are unfair wages for a mostly immigrant work force at the nearby Hilton Hotel.

Predicting it will be Los Angeles' largest-ever demonstration of civil disobedience, leaders of Unite Here said they expect to shut down the Century Boulevard corridor into Los Angeles International Airport.

State Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblywoman Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park, say they are willing to risk arrest to draw attention to the workers' plight.

"The Hilton has one of the best incomes in this airport area. The hospitality industry is over a $21 billion industry and they make so much money yet they pay their workers 20 percent less than in other hotel areas such as downtown," said Chu, who will be joined by activists from We Are America, which staged a massive immigrants-rights demonstration on Wilshire Boulevard on May 1.

Experts say it's important to make the connection between immigration reform and workers' rights because immigrants are less likely to speak up about mistreatment out of fear of retaliation.

"They have elevated the issue to beyond just a group of workers in this single hotel to a broader issue of immigrant workers and the challenges facing immigrant low wages," said Kent Wong, director of the Center for Labor Research and Education at University of California, Los Angeles.

Unite Here said it has been trying to unionize the hotel's 500 employees, most of them immigrants, but that an atmosphere of intimidation has thwarted their efforts.

Hotel management says it would welcome a union election and calls the union's protest tactics harmful.

"This is a disruption for the people who use Los Angeles," said Grant Coonley, general manager of the Hilton at the Los Angeles airport.

"We don't have a problem. If the employees want to unionize, that is fine, but you can't circumvent the system."

Union officials say nonunion workers at hotels near the airport make 20 percent less than union workers in comparable jobs downtown.

But Coonley argues it is because airport hotels also tend to charge less for the rooms.

According to a report by San Francisco-based PKF Consulting, a strategy group specializing in the hotel industry - hotels near the airport averaged $93.71 a night compared with $124.87 downtown from January through August. Downtown hotels had a 75 percent occupancy rate compared with the airport area's 85 percent occupancy, the study said.