UPTE members support striking hotel workers across Southern California, condemn UCRS for being complicit in worker abuse
On Saturday, August 12th, UPTE was proud to join striking UNITE HERE Local 11 hotel workers and our allies to rally outside the Fairmont Miramar in Santa Monica. Thousands of workers at 46 hotels across LA and Orange Counties have hit the picket lines in the last month in the largest hotel strike and boycott in California history.
UNITE HERE members have also been on strike at the Laguna Cliffs Marriott, which is owned by the University of California Retirement Systen (UCRS). Workers there have been repeatedly assaulted, threatened, and had their personal property destroyed. The week prior to the picket, John Tesar, the celebrity chef behind the Laguna Cliffs' Knife Modern Steak restaurant, approached striking workers and broke a drum one of the workers was holding before cursing and hurling insults at the UNITE HERE members.
"Realizing that our retirement fund and, in a roundabout way, our employer share responsibility for this shameful situation really underscored the importance of us joining this picket. UC should not be associated with the horrific violence and intimidation tactics these workers have faced," said Ursula Quinn, UPTE Systemwide Vice President and Occupational Therapist at UCLA. "We take pride in our pension and have fought to protect it. We understand that it's invested so that it grows over time but our benefit should not be at the cost of our follow workers. We want to be able to say this is an institution that we are proud to be affiliated with. If the UC Retirement System is going to tolerate this behavior at a property that they own, how can we trust that UC won't sink to these lows in their dealings with their own workers?"
UPTE was proud to join other unions across the UC Union Coalition in condemning UCRS for staying on the sidelines rather than swifty and unequivocally condemning the actions of hotel management and the organization they've hired to manage the property. You can read the full statement we released and shared with UC by clicking here.
Ursula also reflected on the importance of practicing solidarity and building relationships with people in other unions. "We have been out on strike ourselves, and relied on support from organizations like AFSCME, CNA, and other community organizations. And so we aways try to remember that and make sure we pay that support and solidarity forward," Ursula said. "Just look at the news lately to see all of the strikes happening here in California and across the country. This is on everyone's doorsteps—we have per diem workers impacted by the SAG strike, or EVS workers who come from nonunion hotels to UC for the protections of having a union at work. Many of us have friends or family members on these picket lines. All of this hits close to home. We need to be aware of the intersections in our struggles and the way that these fights can directly or indirectly impact us."