Thousands of hotel workers in Southern California strike for higher pay during Independence Day holiday

LOS ANGELES, July 3 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of unionized hotel workers in Southern California walked off their job Sunday morning for higher wages and better welfare, just as tourists descended on the region for the Fourth of July holiday.

The strike is expected to last four days until the holiday concludes.

"Our members were devastated first by the pandemic, and now by the greed of their bosses," said Kurt Petersen, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11, a union representing more than 32,000 workers in hotels and relevant fields in Southern California and Arizona.

"The industry got bailouts while we got cuts. Now, the hotel negotiators decided to take a four-day holiday instead of negotiating. Shameful," she noted.

Up to 15,000 employees from the group participated in the strike, which affected 65 major hotels in Los Angeles and neighboring Orange counties, including Ritz-Carlton, Hilton, Marriott, and Four Seasons, according to the labor union.

It marks the largest multi-hotel strike in local history that came during one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year, said the organizer.

Video clips posted online showed that members of the union wearing red T-shirts rallied outside the InterContinental Los Angeles Downtown Hotel, one of the biggest hotels in the region, as early as 6:30 a.m. Another big hotel Westin Bonaventure Hotel was able to reach a deal with the workers, averting a strike against it.

In an Instagram post Sunday morning, the union said, "When workers' rights are under attack, what do we do? STAND UP, FIGHT BACK! The #SoCalHotelStrike has started."

The Hotel Association of Los Angeles said that their facilities will remain open with management and other nonunion staff filling in the event that the union strike materialized.