Supporters of the Raise L.A. coalition celebrate a vote of the Los Angeles city council in September 2014. Under the new law, large nonunion hotels in Los Angeles would raise their minimum wage to $15.37 by 2015. The campaign was part of a multi-year strategy led by LAANE and UNITE HERE Local 11 to establish a living wage across the hotel industry. Hotel industry representatives complained that high wages would lead to unemployment for workers. Worker advocates pointed to the large profits of corporate hotels and tax subsidies provide by the city as justification for the higher wage mandate. A representative of LAANE told the L.A. Times, “When employers are saying jobs are going to be lost, they’re really saying, ‘We want to continue to have high profits, so we’re going to fire people.'”
Zahniser, David, and Emily Alpert Reyes. “City Council Backs Wage Hike for Hotel Employees; Lawmakers Approve Raising Minimum Pay to $15.37 an Hour, despite Fears It Will Lead to Job Losses.” Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2014, sec. LATExtra; Part AA; Metro Desk. https://www.proquest.com/latimes/docview/1564540698/abstract/D4140E13177542D6PQ/48.
In September 2006, UNITE HERE Local 11 organized what was likely the largest act of civil disobedience in Los Angeles History. Union members, faith leaders, elected officials, and community allies joined in a large march to protest low wages at corporate hotels along Century Blvd outside of Los Angeles International Airport. The protest demonstrated the union’s ability to build a broad coalition in support of worker and immigrant right at a time when the union was negotiating with hotel employers over a new contract. Building on the themes of the spring 2006 immigrant rights marches, Century Blvd. marchers also evoked the civil rights movement. The slogan “I am a Human Being” echoed the famous message Memphis sanitation workers strikers of 1968, “I am a Man.” Over 300 demonstrators were arrested by Los Angeles Police and bused to Van Nuys for processing. Produced by UNITE-HERE Local 11, this film combines TV news footage, interviews, and street scenes to document the union’s mass action on Century Blvd.
Mathews, Joe. “The State; A Plan for Very Civil Disobedience; Police and Union Will Follow a Script, Which Even Specifies Who Will Be Arrested, in a March near LAX to Organize Hotel Workers.: [HOME EDITION].” Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif., September 28, 2006, sec. Main News; Part A; Metro Desk. http://search.proquest.com/latimes/docview/422186033/abstract/3B85F37323DB4A3CPQ/13.
For 14 months during 2004-2005, UNITE HERE Local 11 mounted an assertive campaign to win a contract with employers represented by the Los Angeles Hotel Employers Council. Building on the union’s rank-and-file strategy, hotel workers organized repeated delegations to articulate their demands to hotel management. The union also mobilized community allies and the labor movement in boycotts and public demonstrations. In addition to wage and benefit demands, the union called for a contract that would expire in the fall of 2006, bringing Los Angeles into alignment with other major cities in the U.S. and Canada. According to Local 11 secretary-treasurer Tom Walsh, “having common contract expirations gives us the opportunity to speak to the same companies that operate all across the country at the same time as other unions are negotiating.” An agreement between the union and employers was brokered by mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa shortly before employers were set to lock out 2,500 workers. This short film produced for Local 11 features interviews with union members and leaders as well as scenes from delegations and demonstrations during 2004-05.
O’Dell, John. “Union, Hotels Avert Strike, Lockout; In Two Late City Hall Sessions, Villaraigosa Acts as Go-between to Achieve a Tentative Pact. Both Sides Anticipate Ratification This Week.: [HOME EDITION].” Los Angeles Times; Los Angeles, Calif., June 12, 2005, sec. California Metro; Part B; Metro Desk. http://search.proquest.com/latimes/docview/421968319/abstract/69804A1C4A44492FPQ/21.
Santa Monica Living Wage – Journey Towards Justice, 2000
In 1999, hospitality workers and their allies formed a new coalition to expand Los Angeles’ living wage ordinance to neighboring Santa Monica. Calling themselves SMART (Santa Monicans Allied for Responsible Tourism), they advanced a proposal to increase the minimum wage for the estimated 3,000 housekeepers, valet drivers, restaurant workers, and security guards who worked in the beachfront hotel district to $10.69 an hour and to require their employers to provide health insurance. As the City of Santa Monica began studying the feasibility of the proposal, opponents of the proposal led by the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce began gathering signatures to place an alternative measure on the ballot in November which, while raising wages for some government contract workers, would have blocked efforts to increase the minimum wage for workers at private businesses, including those beachfront luxury hotels. They began circulating petitions and sent thousands of mailers to area residents alleging that their proposal (which came to be known as Proposition KK) would better protect workers and consumers in Santa Monica. SMART quickly mobilized in opposition to Proposition KK, “The Fake Living Wage,” holding a series of public demonstrations with religious leaders from CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice) to make it clear to local voters that despite claims to the contrary, Prop. KK would not provide a true “living wage” to Santa Monica workers. Their efforts were successful—more than 78% of Santa Monica voters rejected Prop. KK — but the fight to win a living wage for workers in Santa Monica continued for years.
Pictured here is one of those demonstrations, the “Journey Towards Justice” march on April 17, 2000, in which thousands of hotel workers and their supporters marched in the rain down the Santa Monica boardwalk to St. Anne’s Church, where Father Mike Gutierrez offered blessings to the workers in their efforts to win living wages for all.
Additional images of the Santa Monica Living Wage campaign available at the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) records, UCLA Digital Library:
Rocio Sáenz recalls the spirit of solidarity among unions in the early 1990s
I come from Mexico City, and I had a union there. Even though, looking back at the unions in Mexico, they were often very corrupt, at the time I thought it was better than nothing. When I came to the U.S., I did a lot of different jobs. I was a domestic worker, I was a salesperson in a store, and stuff like that. But I wanted to be in a unionized workplace, and so I was trying to get a job through a local union. I didn’t know that there was such a thing as being an organizer, but I was making posters and banners for he ILGWU. A few months later, I met someone in Local 11 of HERE and they hired me. Even then, for a few months, I didn’t do organizing. I didn’t even know what it was. But then I got very involved.
I saw a different way to organize [in HERE]. To bring the trust back from the members, and to show that this was a different union. In any organizing drive, you have to show the workers that, yes, you can make a difference. Little victories that you have to deliver, in order to say there is a change. It has to be very, very specific and concrete. And you have to see things as industry-wide. When I was with HERE I remember organizing my first hotel, reorganizing it for the first time in then years. That was in Manhattan Beach, close to the airport. We did it through elections. Well we organized 300 workers, and that was not going to make a big difference for the industry. You have to look at the whole industry, instead of one single work site. You have to do it in a market competitive way. If you’re going to organize, it has to be like all of downtown L.A. has got to go union. It has to be a long-term plan It takes a lot of effort, a lot of persistence, and a lot of resources.
“You’ve got to keep the heat on in different ways, and you’ve got to be very unpredictable
