Los Angeles Hilton Hotel

Amma, the renowned mystic known as the "hugging saint of India," arrived in Los Angeles over the weekend for five days of spiritual events, but the city's labor leaders are responding with the back of their hands. The problem is Amma's choice of venue for her events: the Hilton Los Angeles Airport hotel.

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.

Union employees at the Downtown Los Angeles Hilton & Towers have won assurances that they will be able to keep their jobs even if the management of the hotel changes hands, as expected, Jan. 31, labor officials announced. The agreement resolves a dispute between almost 600 union-represented workers at the landmark hotel and the South Korean company that owns the facility.

Hilton Leaving Downtown L.A.: After more than 40 years, the Hilton name will disappear from the Downtown Los Angeles hotel scene on Wednesday. That's when the 900-room Los Angeles Hilton & Towers will become an Omni Hotel. The name change reflects a contract dispute between Beverly Hills-based Hilton Hotels, which manages the property, and Hanjin International, a Korean conglomerate that purchased the hotel in 1989.

Police arrested 37 demonstrators Thursday during a union-organized act of civil disobedience designed to dramatize the plight of about 550 hotel workers facing loss of their jobs because of an impending management change at the Los Angeles Hilton and Towers complex. "What would we do without our work?" asked Guadalupe Garcia, a widowed, 41-year-old mother of three and longtime housekeeper who was among those taken into custody in Downtown Los Angeles.

The body of a 27-year-old man who had been fatally stabbed was found in his 15th-floor room at the downtown Los Angeles Hilton hotel Friday afternoon, police said. The victim was identified as Kenneth Wayne Laws of Los Angeles. Hotel officials declined to say how long he had been staying at the hotel.

Hundreds of people were evacuated from the Los Angeles Hilton Hotel early Tuesday when a spark from a kitchen stove ignited a fire in a ventilator shaft. No injuries were reported. About 200 guests were rousted from their top floor rooms about 3:30 a.m. by firefighters knocking on doors or by phone calls from hotel operators. Others walked outside after smelling smoke or hearing fire helicopters and sirens. Nearly all the 900 rooms in the hotel were occupied, officials said.