Tag: UNITE HERE
UNITE HERE is a union for hotel, restaurant, and hospitality workers. Hotel workers were historically represented by the Hotel and Restaurant Employees (HERE). From 2004-2010, HERE merged with the garment workers union UNITE to form UNITE HERE, then split off while retaining the name UNITE HERE. Southern California HERE locals #11 (Los Angeles), #814 (Santa Monica), #681 (Orange County) have merged into one local (#11). Currently, UNITE HERE local 11 represents workers in southern California and Arizona.
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Raise L.A. Coalition Victory
Read more: Raise L.A. Coalition VictoryA higher minimum wage for workers in big hotels Supporters of the Raise L.A. coalition celebrate a vote of the Los Angeles city council in September 2014. Under the new law, large non-union 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 (Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy) and UNITE HERE Local 11 to establish a living wage across…
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Century Blvd. Mass Civil Disobedience
Read more: Century Blvd. Mass Civil DisobedienceIn September 2006, UNITE HERE Local 11 organized what was likely the largest act of civil disobedience in Los Angeles History. Union members, religious 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…
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Victory at Last: Hotel workers reflect on contract victory
Read more: Victory at Last: Hotel workers reflect on contract victoryFor 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…
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Hotel Workers Civil Disobedience
Read more: Hotel Workers Civil DisobedienceIn 2004, UNITE-HERE Local 11 launched a 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 and mobilized community allies and the labor movement in disruptive public demonstrations. The campaign in Los Angeles was part of a “Ten Cities” campaign mounted simultaneously in the U.S. and Canada to win higher standards…
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Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride
Read more: Immigrant Workers Freedom RideIn September 2003, immigrant workers from across the country joined a mass mobilization called the Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride. For twelve days, delegations from 10 cities travelled on buses across the country, making nearly 100 stops along the way, including in Washington D.C. where the Freedom Riders met with Congressional leaders to advocate for immigration reform. The mass mobilization drew its inspiration from the Black freedom struggle, when in 1961, Black and White civil rights…
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Santa Monica Living Wage – Journey For Justice
Read more: Santa Monica Living Wage – Journey For JusticeIn 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…
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“We call each other sister unions”
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Read more: “We call each other sister unions”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…
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Fast for USC Workers
Read more: Fast for USC WorkersHERE Local 11’s campaign at USC began in 1996, when USC began contracting out janitorial and food service work on campus, threatening the good wages and benefits (including mortgage and tuition programs) of dozens of workers. In solidarity with their colleagues from SEIU Local 399 (Justice for Janitors), members of HERE Local 11 refused to sign a new contract until USC stopped contracting work out to non-union companies. USC retaliated by seeking an injunction to…
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Taking on the New Otani
Read more: Taking on the New OtaniAfter a majority of workers at the New Otani Hotel in downtown Los Angeles supported unionization, hotel management refused to negotiate. Members of HERE Local 11 from other Los Angeles hotels pledged to support the New Otani workers with weekly demonstrations that escalated into long-lasting boycott. This 1996 video produced by HERE Local 11 documents the union’s strategy of targeting the Kajima Corporation, a large Japanese construction firm that was the major stakeholders in the…
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Pueblo, Unete! Vigil, March, and Mass for Immigrant Rights
Read more: Pueblo, Unete! Vigil, March, and Mass for Immigrant RightsIn the fall of 1993, conservative political operatives began circulating plans for an anti-immigrant California ballot proposition, what would become Proposition 187. Advocates of immigrant- and worker-rights raised alarms immediately, and mounted a vigorous opposition campaign. Voters approved Prop. 187 in 1994, but it was struck down by a federal judge. The fight against the anti-immigrant law helped propel a new progressive political coalition in California. This short film documents a vigil, march, and mass…