The hotel is ready for a long march as well. David Hsu has told associates that he feels Unite Here can be forced to retreat, much as the Teamsters gave up after an organizing campaign at the hotel in 1998.
The Hsus have hired Lupe Cruz, a former Unite Here organizer, to fight the organizing effort. Federal filings show that the hotel paid Cruz & Associates more than $480,000 last year.
While other hotels have ignored attacks by the union, the Hilton has responded in kind.
Hotel employees have been brought forward by Hilton to accuse the union of harassment, vandalism of their vehicles and visits to their homes that made them uncomfortable.
In 2006, hotel managers suspended more than 70 workers for a week after they gathered in the cafeteria to protest the firing of an employee who was active in the union effort. The employee had been caught stealing by a "mystery shopper" employed by the hotel to impersonate a guest, hotel officials said.
The next day, City Councilwoman Janice Hahn and a hotel security guard had a physical collision as she tried to walk into the hotel with some of the suspended workers.
Hahn claimed she was manhandled. A hotel security videotape appears to show Hahn hitting a guard with her elbow. The guard filed a battery complaint with the Los Angeles Police Department. No charges have been filed.
When the City Council, led by Hahn, voted to extend the living wage of $10.64 per hour to Hilton workers last fall, a Hsu family company donated $235,000 to an effort to qualify a ballot referendum to reverse the new law.
The council later passed compromise legislation to avoid a referendum vote, but that law was thrown out in Superior Court this spring; the city is appealing.
Although the Hsus have thus far avoided the application of the living wage, their opposition to that legislation and to unionization has come at a cost.
Unite Here has led a boycott for almost a year. According to boycott organizers, 19 hotel clients have pulled out, including the California Teachers Assn. The union says the boycott has cost the hotel more than $3 million in lost business. The hotel, in a statement, said "the impact, if any, has been minimal."
The union has made the area in front of the hotel the main stage for actions about how workers are treated.
Last fall, the union helped put together a massive demonstration in front of the hotel that saw the arrests of some 300 protesters. In a statement, the hotel said it treats employees respectfully.
And this spring, Unite Here helped stage a Good Friday religious service in front of the hotel, with a reenactment of the crossing of the Red Sea. Union officials said they asked pastors friendly to their effort to reach out to the Hsus, to no avail.
For now, the union and the Hsus remain at odds.
But the Hsus would seem to have the resources for a long fight. Alan Reay, president of Atlas Hospitality Group, a consulting and brokerage firm, estimates that the Hilton has annual revenue of about $50 million.
If the Hsus were to sell, they would probably turn quite a profit. Public records and industry estimates put its value at approximately $150 million -- more than three times what they paid for it 15 years ago.
joe.mathews@latimes.com
