The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to urge the LAX Hilton to resolve an increasingly testy labor dispute with some employees, even as one security officer for the hotel pressed claims with police that he was injured in a scuffle with Councilwoman Janice Hahn during a demonstration Friday.
The council unanimously approved a resolution asking the hotel to "work together" with 75 employees who were suspended during a job action. The council asked the hotel to "resolve this situation in a fair and equitable manner."
The workers were suspended Thursday for gathering without permission for more than two hours in an employee cafeteria amid anger about the suspension of a colleague, reportedly for misconduct. Union officials accused the hotel of targeting the worker for supporting their organizing effort.
The suspension added fuel to an already touchy situation at the hotel, where workers and managers have engaged in a bitter, and at times physical, debate over proposed labor representation for employees.
Hahn, who has openly sided with the workers in that debate and took part in Friday's demonstration, introduced the council motion. The suspensions, she said, were unjustified and represented "overreacting by the management."
Grant Coonley, general manager of the Hilton Los Angeles Airport hotel, said many of the workers are scheduled to return to the job today and Thursday. Still at issue is whether they will be paid for days they missed while under suspension.
To press her support for the workers, Hahn led a group of the suspended employees and labor activists on a march into the hotel Friday afternoon. While on the march, the workers passed through a barricade onto hotel property, then pushed past hotel security officers to enter the hotel.
One of those officers, Amilcar Sanchez, filed a battery complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department, LAPD officials confirmed Tuesday.
Sanchez alleged in an interview that Hahn struck him with a fist and elbowed him hard as she and the crowd pushed past him.
"I was hit in the chest and upper arm, and it was her," Sanchez said, adding that three other demonstrators also made physical contact with him.
Hilton officials said a videotape of the incident from surveillance cameras was turned over to Capt. William Hayes of the LAPD's Pacific Division on Monday.
