A hotel workers' union is calling today for a boycott of the Hilton Los Angeles Airport, the latest salvo in a contentious year of labor disputes at hotels across the country.
Contracts have expired at hotels in several major cities, with workers in San Francisco, Toronto, Chicago, Honolulu and Monterey, Calif., authorizing union negotiators to call a strike. In Los Angeles, a contract covering more than 5,000 workers at 25 hotels expires in November.
Separately, members of Unite Here Local 11 have been aggressively organizing at the Hilton LAX. Last week, the union filed an unfair labor practices charge accusing hotel managers of disciplining and harassing pro-union employees, which hotel management vehemently denied.
The hotel -- the second-largest in the county with 1,234 rooms -- is one of 13 airport-area hotels that aren't unionized. The union will hold a news conference today at the Hilton LAX, urging people not to eat, meet or sleep at the hotel until it ends the "harassment and intimidation" of workers. A similar boycott began in April at the Glendale Hilton, which is owned by a different Hilton franchisee.
Two groups, the California Teachers Assn. and the Jubilee Ministry of the National Episcopal Church, have already canceled events at the Hilton LAX.
The teachers' union holds quarterly weekend conferences at the Hilton LAX that draw 800 people each and bring in about $1 million a year. The union will meet instead in October at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown L.A.
"As soon as the Hilton solves this dispute with their employees, we are ready to return," said board member Bonnie Shatun, a second-grade teacher in Burbank. "Our teachers believe that everyone has the right to organize. For employees to be denied that right is something that is a very serious problem for us."
When the teachers met at the Hilton LAX in June, Shatun said, they witnessed harassment firsthand.
In one case, a worker who spoke at the teachers' conference received a letter of reprimand. In another, some workers were barred from entering the hotel to speak to the teachers and actor Jimmy Smits, who was at the meeting. Smits later met with the workers outside the hotel, Shatun said.
The church group pulled its upcoming conference, losing several thousand dollars in deposits, said the Rev. Dick Gillett, minister of social justice for the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. Gillett, also speaking on behalf of the national organization, said the church recently passed a resolution at its convention to contract solely with union hotels or those that pay local prevailing wages.
