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Hospitality workers confirm new contract with 34 hotels in Southern California, pressure another 30 to sign Achi-News

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LOS ANGELES (AP) – Thousands of Southern California hospitality workers have ratified a new contract with 34 starving hotels after repeated strikes since the summer, their union announced Monday.

Workers won higher wages, increased employer contributions to pensions and fair workload guarantees, among other provisions of a contract that received 98% approval, Unite Here Local 11 said in a summary of highlights of the agreement that runs until January 15, 2028. A union has yet to reach settlements with another 30 hotels.

Room attendants, cooks and other non-tipped workers will receive wage increases of $10 an hour over the term of the contract, representing a 40% to 50% increase, the union said. Half of the increase will come in the first year.

Room attendants at most hotels will earn $35 an hour by July 2027 and top chefs will earn $41 an hour, the union said. Tipped workers will see improvements such as double time pay for holidays, vacations, sick days and a higher proportion of service charges. Automatic 20% gratuity in full service restaurants will be shared 100% by staff.

The union also stressed that the contract maintains health insurance where employees pay no more than $20 a month for full family coverage.

“We’ve won a life-changing contract that transforms hotel jobs from low-wage service work to middle-class professional jobs,” Local 11 co-president Kurt Petersen told workers at a rally outside a downtown hotel Los Angeles.

Characterizing their demands as a fight for wages that will allow members to live in the cities where they work, more than 10,000 workers in greater Los Angeles began rolling strikes at 52 hotels in July 2023. Workers went on strike repeatedly, picketing and later returning to work. The union represents 15,000 workers but staff at some hotels have not taken part in strikes.

The union scored a major achievement just before the wave of strikes when a tentative agreement was reached with its largest employer, the Westin Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in downtown Los Angeles, which has more than 600 union workers. Other hotels gradually came to terms with the strike.

Petersen also pointed out that the new contract expires a few months before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“We demand a new deal for the Olympics that includes jobs that support families and affordable housing for workers. And let me say, if they don’t give us that new deal, are we prepared to do what it takes? ” he said to cheers from employees.

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Published: 26 Mar 2024, 02:45 AM IST

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