Hotel Laundry Lockout Ends

The Wilshire Grand Hotel and its 17 unionized laundry workers agreed to a contract Friday, ending a three-month lockout that fueled tensions in a larger hotel labor dispute.

The six-year contract raises wages by 25%, or $2.55 an hour, and more than doubles the hotel’s pension contribution. It prevents the hotel from contracting out work. And there’s a bonus for the largely immigrant workforce: a full day’s pay for any worker sworn in as a U.S. citizen.

“Overall it was a huge victory,” said Christina Vasquez, deputy administrator of Unite Here Local 52, which represents 4,000 laundry workers in Los Angeles.

Hotel manager John Stoddard, who locked out the workers when their previous contract expired Sept. 16, also praised the deal. “With this long-term contract, the Wilshire Grand can now proceed with our plan to invest more than $1 million in updating and expanding our in-house laundry operation,” he said. “That investment means our employees will have good jobs for years to come.”

The agreement has no direct effect on a more difficult contract battle between nine luxury hotels, including the Wilshire Grand, and several thousand union housekeepers, bellmen, cooks and others. Those workers belong to Local 11 of the same union, Unite Here.

Vasquez said she believed the laundry lockout was meant to provoke a strike by Local 11 at a time it could not afford one, but that did not happen. Meanwhile, the laundry workers qualified for state unemployment insurance, which softened the financial sting of the lockout for workers.

The National Labor Relations Board is still looking into charges filed by the union claiming the lockout was illegal, and it could force the hotel to compensate the workers for lost pay, Vasquez said.

Stoddard said negotiations between Local 11 and the Los Angeles Hotel Employers Council, which represents the nine hotels, were set to resume Monday. That’s when the union laundry workers return to their jobs.