Local News in Brief : Hotel Workers March

About 2,500 hotel workers and their supporters held a march and rally Thursday evening in downtown Los Angeles, demanding improved wages and working conditions.

“We want our employers to immediately negotiate a new, three-year contract,” said Miguel Contreras, chief negotiator for Local 11 of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union.

The marchers are demanding an immediate $1-an-hour pay increase for employees in 15 hotels whose four-year contract has a clause calling for renegotiation of wages this year, Contreras said. He said talks broke off with the Hotel Employers Council of Southern California on May 19, after the employers offered only a 20-cent increase this year. The majority of the union’s members make less than $5.25 an hour, he said. Attempts to obtain a comment from the council were unsuccessful.

At a rally across the street from the Biltmore, one of the 15 affected hotels, union organizer Maria Elena Durazo promised the hotels a bruising battle if they don’t respond to the workers’ demands. “If we have to, we will take over those fancy hotels and get arrested and do whatever else it takes to win respect from these employers,” she said.