After three months of rolling strikes, second L.A. hotel reaches tentative agreement with union

The agreement also provides improved healthcare, more robust staffing, pension increases, and more inclusive hiring procedures for formerly incarcerated people and unauthorized immigrants, said union spokesperson Maria Hernandez.

“We applaud the Biltmore Los Angeles for putting their workers and our city first,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11 in a Friday news release by the union. The hotel, in the financial district, is the second Southern California property with which the union has struck a deal. The first was the Westin Bonaventure, which reached a tentative deal just as contracts were set to expire June 30, for more than 15,000 hotel workers at some 60 properties in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“We are very pleased to have come to an agreement with Unite Here Local 11 on behalf of our loyal and dedicated employees,” said Jimmy Wu, general manager of the Biltmore Los Angeles, according to the news release. “We can now focus together on looking after our guests and providing the level of service our guests have come to expect from the Biltmore Los Angeles.” Unite Here Local 11 declined to give specifics about wages and other economic details of the agreements. Unionized workers have not yet held a vote to ratify the Westin Bonaventure contract.

The Westin Bonaventure averted a strike, but at dozens of other properties, hotel workers have been walking off the job intermittently, a few days at a time, ever since the Fourth of July weekend. The latest burst of strikes kicked off Monday, when workers at five Santa Monica hotels walked off the job. On Thursday, the strike expanded to Beverly Hills properties, including the Waldorf Astoria, the Beverly Hilton and the Fairmont Century Plaza. Suhauna Hussain covers labor for the Los Angeles Times. Before joining The Times in 2018, she wrote for the Tampa Bay Times, the Center for Public Integrity, the East Bay Express, the Chronicle of Higher Education and the independent student-run newspaper, the Daily Californian. Hussain was raised in L.A. and graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in political economy.