Hundreds Help Loews Hotel Workers Kick Off Union Drive

By Jorge Casuso

Riding a groundswell of support for low-wage workers, more than 500 union backers turned out for a spirited march late Thursday afternoon to kick off a union organizing campaign at the Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel.

Led by the mayor and a majority of the City Council, the demonstrators chanted slogans and carried placards as they marched up Ocean Avenue to the driveway of the luxury beachfront hotel, where they requested a meeting with the hotel management.

"The mayor, clergy and workers are here," Mayor Ken Genser announced.

"The manager is not available," responded Rob Christy, the hotel's head of security. "There's no specific manager in charge."

Marketing director Don Foreman came out but declined to accept a letter from the delegation, reading instead a short statement saying that management was "not aware of any dispute with its employees.

"The decision to unionize lies solely with the workers," said Forman, adding that five of the 15 hotels in the Loews chain are unionized.

During the past two month, hotel workers have formed a union organizing committee that boasts 30 members whose pictures grace the cover of a spiral bound document outlining the employee's struggle.

"We believe that all employees at the Loews hotel need a Union," reads a message on the cover. "We are strong and united and we are not afraid. It is our right to organize a union."

Hotel employees said that shortly after they began organizing, Loews management raised wages as much as $3 an hour and reduced the amount they paid for health insurance. Some workers said they received free massages and gift certificates to the hotel's fine dining restaurant, as well as discount coupons to Disneyland and Magic Mountain.

"They are handing out money like we've never seen before, but it's too little too late," said union organizer Kurt Peterson. "It's an insult to the workers. Everyone's asking, 'Where was the money before? Why now? And the answer is the union.'

"It's a great victory," Peterson said. "We haven't even stepped inside and we have our first victory. It's not about wages. They underestimate people's intelligence. What they give away today, they can take away tomorrow. Workers want to be treated fairly and with respect."

Mayra Rodas, a housekeeper, said the hotel hiked her salary from $7.75 to $9.50 an hour in the past two months. Rodas said she cleans 15 rooms a day - changing the linen, scrubbing the bathroom, vacuuming the floor and dusting the furniture in rooms that sometimes go for more a night than her $510-a-month apartment.

But Rodas says the struggle is not about money.

"They don't respect us," Rodas said. "The supervisors scream at us. One hit me in the head. I was afraid. They follow us to the bathroom, check how long we're on break. I'm not afraid anymore. I'm already tired of so much abuse."

Ricardo Uribe, a Loews housekeeper and a member of the organizing committee, said working his previous job in the laundry room was "like being in jail. When you go to the restroom, they follow you to see how long you take. They've always treated us badly."

Uribe, who has worked at the hotel for five years, said that a sudden $2.50 raise (after raises of 12 and 15 cents) and discount tickets to theme parks haven't dissuaded him from pushing for a union.

The raise and gifts, he said "are a trick to get us to stop the union, but we'll continue until there's justice. At first we were scared. But when we saw the (community) support, the fear started disappearing slowly. We met council members and clergy and that took the fear away."

The campaign - which coincides with a hotly contested battle over a pioneering living wage proposal for hotel and restaurant employees -- comes one month after the local Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union signed a contract with the new owners of the Miramar Fairmont Hotel.

But unlike the Miramar vote to retain the union, a union election at the Loews would not be conducted under the auspices of the National Labor Relations Board, Peterson said.

"It's not a fair process," Peterson said. "Workers get fired and nothing is done. The NLRB gives some protections, but not enough."

Instead, union leaders hope management agrees to hold a tally supervised by "a priest or a judge." Similar elections have been held at duty free shops at LAX and at the new Staples Center downtown, as well as at some Las Vegas casinos, Peterson said.

He said the workers will get the union to agree to similar elections "through marching, through organizing.

"Let's hope they get their senses soon. We don't want another Miramar," Peterson said, referring to the nasty four-year battle with the previous owners of the city's only unionized hotel. "But we're ready to go as long as it takes. We'll be back."

Thursday's demonstration buoyed Uribe's hopes for a union victory. The housekeeper said he's holding on to the discount tickets to Disneyland and Magic Mountain.