Would superheroine Sailor Moon cross a picket line? That’s the question organizers with Unite Here Local 11 were asking Anime Expo attendees in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday during a packed July 4 weekend.
Keith Grossman, an attorney with Hirschfeld Kraemer, one of two legal firms representing the hotel coalition, took issue with the union’s support for certain policy proposals, including a measure set for the 2024 ballot that would require hotels in Los Angeles to rent vacant rooms to homeless people.
Unite Here Local 11 spokesperson Maria Hernandez denied the union had canceled any scheduled negotiations and said it is pushing hotel companies to accept the higher wage proposal it made at the outset of negotiations. The union represents more than 32,000 hospitality workers across Southern California and Arizona. Its members are nonmanagement hotel employees, including people who staff front desks, clean rooms and work in hotel restaurants.
“It’s understandable, and they have families to feed. They have a life and pay bills, and we should help support them. It’s unfair that we get luxury and they don’t get paid well enough,” Bermudes said. The primary sticking point for workers is the demand for higher pay, needed, they say, to cover rising housing costs in the region. Expensive housing is causing many workers to live far from their jobs, saddling them with hours-long commutes.