Good morning, Inequality Insights readers. I’m CalMatters reporter Wendy Fry.
You may remember it as a hot labor summer. Los Angeles-area hotel workers might remember it as history in the making.
After repeated strikes since summer, workers at nearly three dozen Los Angeles-area hotels have secured $1 billion in wage increases in a recently ratified labor agreement.
The new contracts for 34 hotels —which include high-end places like the Beverly Hilton and the Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills — will raise wages for room attendants, cooks and other non-tipped workers by $10 an hour. Those raises amount to about 40% – 50% increases on average, their union said Monday.
Hotel worker wages, like those for many Angelenos, have not kept up with soaring housing costs.
Kurt Petersen, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11, which represents 15,000 hotel workers, said the union’s struggle was over a key question: who will be able to afford to live in Los Angeles?
“Will LA only belong to the wealthy? Or will those who write, who cook, who clean, who teach, who act — those who make Los Angeles beautiful and prosperous, will they be able to live in this city?” Petersen was speaking Monday at a rally about the new labor pact, which is in effect until January 2028.
Since July 2023, more than 10,000 workers at 53 hotels have held rolling strikes more than 160 times, making it the nation’s largest hotel worker strike wave in modern history, according to Petersen.
The union still has to reach settlements with 30 other hotels.
The new agreement also reinstates daily room cleanings, a practice that stopped during the COVID-19 pandemic. It includes increased employer contributions to pensions, maintains family health insurance for which workers pay no more than $20 per month and adds a new paid holiday for Juneteenth, a holiday celebrating the end of slavery.
A coalition of hotels involved in the labor pact also welcomed the deal.
“We’re glad that hotel employees who have been waiting months now can enjoy the benefits of new contracts, including increased compensation, and continue the great work they do for our guests and our communities,” said Pete Hillan, a spokesperson for the California Hotel & Lodging Association.
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