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LB Coalition calls for more hotel management responsibilities

The call for more responsibility from the hotel industry has been months in the making, and now moves into its third stage: action.

The Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community embraces grassroots organizing in the living wage campaign for hotel workers after advancing from stage one, research, and stage two, discussion and assessment.

More than 100 students, religious and labor leaders, elected officials and Long Beach hotel workers are expected to convene at the Long Beach Hilton on Ocean Boulevard today at 5 p.m.

The letter being presented to hotel management demands that hotels provide the community with living wages, affordable family health insurance, job access, training programs for local residents and honor workers’ rights to organize, according to Nadia Afghania, Los Angeles Alliance for A New Economy (LAANE) communications specialist.

“The campaign will be the first time the community takes their demands to hotel management,” Afghani said.

A town hall meeting was held at Cal State Long Beach on March 1, where the Coalition for Good Jobs, along with staff, faculty and community members, discussed the next steps for the hotel worker campaign.

The coalition has since been gathering hundreds of signatures to petition the hotel industry on granting workers a living wage. LAANE, city council and state assembly members and several CSULB sociology professors have been working closely with the Coalition for Good Jobs as the events have unfolded.

“There have been reports of worker mistreatment, but many have not been substantiated,” said Gary Hytrek, associate sociology professor at CSULB.

Hytrek said that although management was willing to talk, the Long Beach Hilton is still part of a larger structure, and no matter what they want, they cannot go on record as saying they support union efforts.

Hytrek also said the Hilton has employed consultants to speak with employees to counter the union efforts, which does not follow suit with the hotel’s original testimony that they wanted everyone to be neutral.

The procession of events emerged over a report conducted by the Coalition for Good Jobs called “A Tale of Two Cities: How Long Beach’s Investment in Downtown Tourism has Contributed to Poverty Next Door.”

The report concluded that the $750 million invested into the Long Beach tourism industry has not offered a fair return to tax payers and leaves hotel workers unable to support their families. The report was met with some criticism from community members who believed that it left out information and that the community should not be involved in the workers’ struggle.

Ultimately, according to Hytrek, the coalition hopes to instigate a process of more community involvement so that public decisions will be made with them in mind.

“If along the way hotel workers unionize or a living wage campaign is successful,” Hytrek said. “That is icing on the cake.”
 

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