Hotel strike nears end as union reaches more tentative deals with holdouts

Members of Unite Here! In late April, the powerful hospitality union Unite Here Local 11 announced it had reached tentative contract agreements with 12 Southern California hotels. “We’re winning more the longer this goes on.” Stephanie Peterson, a spokesperson for Aimbridge Hospitality, which operates six hotels that recently settled, said in a statement: “We are pleased to have reached an agreement with the Union that puts our people first, and we are taking the immediate steps to begin issuing the backpay our associates have been waiting for.” The new contracts include an almost immediate raise of $5 per hour for workers who don’t typically earn tips, including front desk clerks, dishwashers and housekeepers. Peter J. Eliasberg, chief counsel at the ACLU of Southern California, sent a letter May 15 to Pasadena’s City Council members, chief of police and city attorney urging the city to drop the charges, saying they “very likely violate the First Amendment and Liberty of Speech Clause of the California Constitution.” Video footage captured by the union’s general counsel, Jeremy Blasi, and reviewed by The Times, shows two police officers recording decibel measurements of several picketers on a public sidewalk a few feet away. Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson called the deal a “historic contract agreement that ensures hospitality workers will have the dignity of living wages and industry-leading benefits to support their families,” according to a Unite Here Local 11 news release in April.