California hotel workers ‘on the brink’ of joining wave of strikes

Nearly 1,000 workers at Anaheim’s Sheraton Park and Hilton poised to walk off the job following protests across the US in 2018

Michael Sainato
Tue 29 Jan 2019 11.00 GMT Last modified on Tue 29 Jan 2019 11.51 GMT

After 18 years working a housekeeper at the Sheraton Park resort in Anaheim, California, Celia Hernandez still struggles to make ends meet.

“I live three blocks from Disneyland. I live in a two-bedroom apartment. I pay $1,875 a month in rent. My 23-year-old son is forced to live in the living room on the couch because we can’t afford a bigger place because the cost of living is so high,” Hernandez said. “It’s a struggle for someone like me to put food on the table for my family.”

But Hernandez is now taking action. She is one of nearly 1,000 hotel workers at the Sheraton Park resort and Hilton hotel in Anaheim who are on the verge of walking off the job, continuing a wave of hotel strikes that occurred at the end of 2018 across the US.

In September 2018, 6,000 union members went on strike against 26 hotels in Chicago. Nearly 8,000 Marriott hotel workers went on strike in eight US cities for nine weeks in October 2018, the largest hotel strike in US history. Hotel workers in the Los Angeles area were poised to join the wave of hotel strikes after union members at 24 hotels in Los Angeles and Orange county voted to authorize a strike in December 2018.

Though several Los Angeles hotels later reached contract deals to avoid a strike, the Sheraton Park resort and Hilton are holding out in negotiations, demanding concessions. Unite Here Local 11, which represents about 1,000 workers at both hotels, said workers are “now on the brink of walking off the job”.

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