For about the past two years, Unite Here Local 11 – a union based in Southern California – has been organizing protests at the Westin Long Beach and Renaissance Long Beach hotels in an effort to promote unionization and to support workers who say their rights have been violated. Nearby residents say these consistent protests have been marked most noticeably by early morning bullhorn noise, as well as one incident in which protestors carried a large wooden cross through the Westin’s lobby.
But despite two years of protesting, a vote amongst workers to decide whether to join Unite Here Local 11 has yet to occur.
In order to hold a formal vote overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), a petition in support of unionization must be signed by at least 30% of employees and filed with the board.
As of Friday, February 17, the National Labor Relations Board had no record of any such petitions filed for either hotel, according to a board spokesperson.
Lorena Lopez, director and organizer for Unite Here Local 11 in Long Beach, told the Business Journal the union is not pursuing this method of unionization. “We have not filed for an election, no,” Lopez said. “Workers are organizing, and they are looking for a fair process to unionize.”
The common alternative to filing a petition for an election overseen by the NLRB is a process called a card check neutrality agreement.
Card check is a process of unionization in which employees sign forms, or “cards,” stating they wish to join a union. If more than 50% of employees sign cards indicating they wish to unionize, the employer may voluntarily accept unionization without an NLRB-overseen election.
Lopez confirmed that the union is seeking a card check neutrality agreement. “The card check neutrality agreement is a process that ensures the employer will remain neutral,” she said. “That’s what we want. We want neutrality.”
Protestors advocating for unionization of the Westin Long Beach and Renaissance Long Beach inflated a giant bed bug outside the Westin on February 24. They reportedly asked exiting guests of the hotel if they were aware they could receive $25 refunds if they witnessed bed bugs in their rooms. These protests are organized by the union Unite Here Local 11. (Photographs by the Business Journal’s Larry Duncan)
Before it begins collecting signatures, the union wants the hotel to commit to remaining neutral and allowing the process to move forward, according to Lopez.
While the NLRB process is a blind vote in which voters remain anonymous, card check neutrality is not an anonymous process in that, by signing a card, employees are in essence signing their name to their vote.
A spokesperson for the Westin Long Beach sent the Business Journal a statement indicating support of an NLRB secret ballot process.
“We support our associates’ right to decide whether to participate in activities protected by federal labor laws and to decide the important question of whether to be represented by a union,” the Westin statement read.
The statement continued, “The best way for our associates to determine if they want such representation is through a secret ballot election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, as that agency has been doing for over 80 years. We also believe that the associates should have access to information from all sources before voting.
“The union, however, wants our associates to make a decision based only on information provided by the union. Additionally, the union does not want to allow the associates to make this decision in the privacy of a voting booth. Rather, the union wants them to decide in the presence of union representatives. We do not believe the union’s position respects our associates’ rights.”
The Renaissance has declined to comment on issues pertaining to the labor disputes.
In addition to this unionization campaign, Unite Here Local 11 is advocating for a city ordinance related to hotel workers. “We have been asking the mayor and the council to put forward an ordinance that will help these women deal with harassment in those hotels,” Lopez said in a previous interview with the Business Journal.
She has not seen any movement among the city council or the mayor’s office to initiate the creation of such an ordinance, she noted. “We haven’t seen anything. We’re hoping that the city feels for these women and the leadership is doing something,” she said.
Input From Workers
Workers at the hotels are divided into two camps: pro-union and anti-union. But without any signatures collected, it’s difficult to know which way the tide is turning.
Rosa Casarrubias has worked as a waitress at the Westin Long Beach for 10 years and was one of the workers to initially call Unite Here Local 11 for assistance, she told the Business Journal.
“I called the union because of all the harassment and bullying I have been going through [that] I reported to human resources, to the general manager, even the corporation,” she said. “And they never listen to me.”
Casarrubias alleges she was harassed by coworkers and managers, and made official complaints to that effect five years ago. She also said she has worked overtime and had to skip 10-minute breaks without being paid for that time.
Jose Nuñez Diaz has worked in housekeeping at the Renaissance Long Beach for nearly 14 years. Via a Unite Here translator, he told the Business Journal he wants the hotel to unionize so he can receive better benefits and so that his workload will not be overburdensome.
“It is extremely stressful to work and to do all the work they assign us to. And if we are part of the union, we will have the right to negotiate that,” Nuñez Diaz said. He also said that he has participated in protests in front of the hotel, which causes his supervisors to become “very angry” with him.
“This is my city. I live in Long Beach,” Nuñez Diaz said. “And the reason why I am fighting is so that I can have a better future in my city and so that all my coworkers can have a better future.”
A protestor at the Westin Long Beach dressed as a bed bug. (Photograph by the Business Journal’s Larry Duncan)
David Gonzalez, who has worked in bus service for eight years at the Westin, does not want the hotel to unionize. “It’s a good atmosphere that we have going on right now. I’ve been there for eight years, and they’ve taken really great care of us,” he told the Business Journal in an interview in late January.
The Westin’s working environment is one built on teamwork, according to Gonzalez. “If we need help, managers will come help us. Our own general manager will be busing tables with us if we need it,” he said. “We’ve never had problems with management, with employees. The people who want the union are the people who are lazy and who don’t want to work as a team.”
Gonzalez said that Unite Here has employed intimidating tactics to convince workers to sign documents in support of unionizing.
“The families [of workers] are scared,” Gonzalez said. “They don’t give you an option. It’s either sign up or we’ll harass you, or we’ll follow you until you actually sign up.” Gonzalez likened this behavior to stalking. “They’ve been to employees’ homes. Especially if they find out you want to go against them, they start going to people’s houses,” he said.
Long Beach Police Commander Robert Smith oversaw the department’s West Division, which includes downtown, until recently. He said in a February 6 interview with the Business Journal that he has not heard about any such incidents.
“Here’s what I would say: If there are instances where somebody felt their safety was in jeopardy or somebody were stalking them, on either side, I would encourage you to encourage them to call and report that so we could collect all the facts and investigate it if it’s appropriate and also submit something like that for filing consideration,” he said.
Smith added, “The last thing I want to happen for the community down there on all sides is for someone to not report a potential crime or threat against them, or a situation where they feel their safety is in jeopardy and they are not inclined to reach out to the police.”
In a prior interview with the Business Journal, Lopez said that Unite Here does send representatives to hotel employees’ homes. Coworkers in support of unionization also “will do whatever it takes to try to talk to them about their support,” she said. She believes many workers at the hotels are scared of retaliation from their employers.
Gonzalez said he believes few employees at either hotel support unionization. He has spent money out of his own pocket to purchase anti-union pins, which some Westin workers are reportedly wearing while on duty.
Councilmember Involvement
With no end in sight to protesting and unionization efforts, 2nd District Councilmember Jeannine Pearce has been pressed by frustrated nearby residents for solutions.
As reported in the last edition of the Business Journal, the city’s health department has found the protests to be in violation of the city’s noise ordinance every time they have taken a decibel reading of the activity. Two protestors recently pled no contest to disturbing the peace, and another three are currently being prosecuted for the same offense.
Prior to becoming a city councilmember in 2016, Pearce was a director for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), a nonprofit organization dedicated to workers’ rights and healthy communities. In that role, she worked directly with Unite Here Local 11 and participated in their labor protests at the Hilton Long Beach – bullhorns and all. It has been “several years” since she was on a picket line, she stated.
Pearce described her role in efforts to unionize the Westin and Renaissance as follows: “My role was to educate community members, to bring people to the table and to make sure they were hearing the stories from employees, to give them the opportunity to engage with management if they wanted it, [and] to make sure that they were talking to their elected officials about what they heard. And that was my role as director.” She noted that she has met with many hotel workers of both the Westin and Renaissance.
Pearce said that claims that LAANE is a union front organization are insulting.
“LAANE really is not a union. It’s not something that goes out and says you have to unionize,” she said. “It’s an organization that says we want . . . standards for industry across the board.” LAANE also works with nonprofits involved with environmental issues, women’s rights and more, she noted. She estimated that “less than 25%” of LAANE’s funding comes from labor groups.
Aqua resident Debbie Lewis captured this memorable moment in which protestors with Unite Here Local 11 carried a cross through the lobby of the Westin Long Beach.
Upon deciding to run for council, Pearce said she stepped away from heavy involvement in LAANE’s Long Beach activities. LAANE did not contribute any funds to support her campaign, but Unite Here contributed $400, she said.
Shortly after becoming councilmember, Pearce traveled to Utah to meet with the majority owner of the Westin, Utah Retirement Systems. She said the purpose of that meeting was not to push for unionization. Rather, she went to encourage dialogue between all involved parties.
Because the hotel is up for sale, she also wanted to encourage its current ownership to sell to a party that “understands what labor peace is.”
According to Pearce, Unite Here does not pursue unionization campaigns unless workers are mostly receptive to their efforts. “What happens in a union campaign [is], before Unite Here will go in and say, ‘We’re going to spend resources to try to organize,’ they talk to people quietly. And they do not ever go into a hotel and spend resources unless they have 50% or more of the workers who say, ‘Yes, we want to go down this process,’” she explained.
This is the same percentage required for a card check neutrality agreement.
Pearce pointed out that in 2013, Unite Here Local 11 came to an agreement with the Hyatt Regency Long Beach and Hyatt Centric The Pike to undertake both the NLRB blind-vote process and the card check process. Workers voted to unionize.
“The fact is, nobody is coming to the table right now, and they can’t even have those discussions in a peaceful way that demonstrate respect and dignity and take away the fear,” Pearce said. “Having a third party come in and take over that process is the only way that workers are ever going to feel safe.”
She reflected, “The best thing we can do as elected officials [and] as residents is to say, ‘How do we get a process?’ Whatever the workers decide, if they vote with NLRB and it’s not for the union, at least there was a fair process that had oversight, that was transparent, [and] it was in a place taken away from fear.”
Pearce expressed that she was content with any method of voting agreed upon by all parties.
In our previous issue, the Business Journal interviewed three residents of the Aqua who say their lives have been adversely impacted by the noise from the protests.
Pearce said that only the “same five people” have been expressing concerns about noise generated by the protests.
Kyle Daly, another resident of the Aqua building across the street from the Westin, called Pearce’s assessment that few people are discontent with the protests to be “a gross understatement.” He did, however, point out that there are numerous Aqua and other area residents who support the protests or are indifferent.
Daly has not called Pearce but has called the police department, the mayor’s office and the city prosecutor’s office to complain about protest noise. He acknowledged that perhaps he and others should stop relying on Debbie Lewis, another Aqua resident, to take up the mantle of fighting against protest-related noise disturbances and also lend their voices to the situation if their lack of input is causing the impression that few people are bothered by the situation.
Michael Massie lived in the Aqua for about eight years until this November, when he moved to another city in the region for work. “I am not going to say that the protestors didn’t interrupt my day. On numerous occasions, they certainly did,” he said. “But I think they were effective at what they were trying to do, which was to draw attention to the situation with the Westin. I didn’t find it particularly troublesome. It was certainly occasionally an inconvenience on Saturday mornings. But I didn’t find it onerous at all.”
Massie described his political viewpoint as fairly left-leaning and a bit libertarian in nature. “I think that people have the right to assemble and speak and make their cause known,” he said. “I am not intimately familiar with the labor practices of the Westin, but I tend to think that if maybe someone has a labor complaint or wishes to organize, that is clearly within their rights.”
Another downtown resident, Lynne Smothers Reese, said she supports the protestors. “I live down the street and I have actually participated in some of the protests at the hotel. I think they treat their employees shabbily and that the protests are an effective way to draw attention to the issue.”
Daly wants to know why the protests haven’t stopped.
“It seems like there should have been a vote. That’s what I can’t figure out,” Daly said. “They talk about a fair election process. Who is preventing them from holding the vote? It seems like it’s just bullying tactics to force it upon them.”
Daly continued, “They have a right to unionize in the appropriate manner. And if they can’t do it through the established statutory procedures of the election process and whatever else the NLRA [National Labor Relations Act] allows, then they are just going to stand there and have no intention of ever stopping with the bullhorns until the other side – the Westin or the Renaissance – just caves.”
Allegations Of Intimidation On Part Of Employers, Police
Pearce expressed concern about accounts of intimidation by superiors at the hotels. She said one such incident occurred after as many as 50 workers at the Renaissance notified management of their intent to unionize and aired grievances about unpaid rest breaks and other labor violations.
“A week later, they got a cake that said, ‘Welcome to the union,’” she recounted. “And in the lunchroom – this is a story that has been relayed to me, and I know there was an unfair labor practice that was filed against this action – they took the cake and threw it away and said, ‘You can’t have this here.’”
Unite Here Local 11 sent the Business Journal NLRB settlements related to complaints at both the Renaissance and Westin. The nature of those complaints was not included in the settlement documents. To comply with the settlement agreements, both hotels were required to post notices informing workers of their right to unionize and asserting that their employers would not prevent them from doing so.
Unite Here’s Lopez believes the Long Beach Police Department’s regular response to calls for service related to the protests at the hotels is intimidating in nature. “The Long Beach police have used tactics of intimidation and retaliation to the protests,” she said.
Asked for specific incidences of intimidation or retaliation, Lopez replied, “When there is a protest, you have two, three, four, five police cars [responding with] two police officers in each car for a group of eight or 10 people protesting outside a hotel.” She said the police signal that they are there only to protect guests and the employer. “We have gone to the Long Beach City Council to complain about these practices from the Long Beach police. We have filed complaints with internal affairs.”
In response to these comments, the police department sent a statement to the Business Journal. “In an effort to ensure public safety and the safety of responding officers, the police department deploys resources based on the totality of reported circumstances, including call type and the number of individuals involved,” the statement read.
“The police department has met with community stakeholders, including union representatives, to discuss the concerns of the involved parties. . . . The police department has also provided an overview of the internal affairs process, including the mechanism that should be utilized to report any potential acts of misconduct,” the police department stated.
Worker Lawsuits
Both hotels are embroiled in lawsuits filed by employees. Class action suits against both hotels allege labor violations, including failure to pay compensation for meal and rest periods, for all hours worked, and for overtime hours. Other allegations include minimum wage violations, failure to reimburse for expenses or losses incurred due to performing work duties, failure to provide accurate itemized wage statements, unfair business practices and more.
These lawsuits are ongoing. A status conference for the class action suit against the Renaissance was held on February 24, and a status conference for the suit against the Westin is planned for June 15, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court documents.
In another lawsuit against the Renaissance Long Beach and a male employee, two female employees are fighting for damages due to alleged assault, battery, sexual battery, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, retaliation and other complaints. Both plaintiffs are Latina women employed at the hotel. One works as a banquet server and the other as a housekeeper.
The accused employee is a supervisory banquet captain at the hotel. Allegations detailed in Los Angeles Superior Court documents include vividly recounted incidents of verbal harassment and sexual assault.
One account in court documents details a 2012 incident in which another male employee allegedly trapped one of the defendants in a storage room and sexually assaulted her. The defendant said she reported this to human resources, after which she was granted a week off for bereavement. When she returned she was allegedly told no action could be taken because such complaints must be resolved within a week.
The Renaissance did not provide comment regarding these lawsuits.
A spokesperson for the Westin Long Beach wrote via e-mail that the hotel respects all its employees. “As a top hospitality employer, we operate in accordance with California labor laws and are committed to maintaining positive relations with all of our associates,” the statement read.
In May 2016, a report on “compliance with domestic and international labor standards” at the Westin was published by the University of California, Irvine School of Law’s Immigrants Rights Clinic. The report was initiated due to a request from Unite Here Local 11, which was made in the summer of 2015, according to one of the report’s authors, Sam Cretcher.
UCI’s Immigrant Rights Clinic concluded that the West-in violated wage and hour laws by denying uninterrupted rest and meal breaks and failing to pay housekeeping staff for time spent preparing for their work.
The report’s authors came to these conclusions without communicating with hotel officials.
UCI’s clinic relied upon documentation provided by Unite Here Local 11, as well as documents from LAANE. Also factored into UCI’s report: interviews with and sworn affidavits by hotel employees; hotel documents including pay stubs, the employee handbook and the benefits packet; and communications between the union and the hotel’s principal owner.
Employees were not selected at random for interviews. Rather, Unite Here Local 11 connected the UCI clinic with employees. “Once connected, we independently conducted every interview. Union representatives were only present upon request for translation assistance,” Sam Cretcher, one of the report’s authors, told the Business Journal via e-mail.
“Neither the hotel nor its parent companies were contacted about the report,” Cretcher wrote. “The nature of the report and the evidence on which it relied did not require immediate comment. As stated in the report’s conclusion, the purpose of our publication was to aid the hotel and other decision-making entities with useful information in responding to workers’ appeals for change.”