Thousands of California hotel workers go on strike amid holiday weekend, demanding better pay and benefits

• Thousands of hotel employees across LA and southern California went on strike Sunday.
• 96% of the union voted last month to authorize a strike amid disputes over pay and benefits.
• The union said many of its members had been priced out of being able to live near their place of work in LA.

Thousands of hotel employees across Los Angeles and southern California walked out of their jobs Sunday morning, starting a massive strike in the middle of a holiday weekend that has already put a strain on other areas of the travel economy.

Last month, 96% of the union voted in favor of striking. The union representing the workers says profits in Los Angeles and Orange County have gone above pre-pandemic levels, but the wages the workers are paid no longer allows them to live near their workplaces.

Unite Here Local 11 said in a statement that about 53% of its thousands of members told the union in an anonymous survey that they had moved in the last five years, or are planning to move soon because of the rise in housing costs.

"Our members were devastated first by the pandemic, and now by the greed of their bosses," Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said in a statement to Insider. "The industry got bailouts while we got cuts. Now, the hotel negotiators decided to take a four-day holiday instead of negotiating. Shameful."

Spokespeople from a group of over 40 of the affected hotels have said they are prepared to keep the hotels running with management and non-union workers filling in. They also criticized the union, claiming they seemed to be intent on disrupting their hotels from the beginning and have not always negotiated in good faith, according to CNN and the New York Times.

The union's website states that it represents over 32,000 workers across Southern California and Arizona, and at least 15,000 workers are affected by the current dispute. About 600 of the union's members are not striking as LA's largest hotel, the Westin Bonaventure, agreed to a tentative deal with its union workers last week.

The union also notes the region's commitments to hosting parts of the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics, and the millions of tourists those events will bring, as an example of the profitable and important events they help support.

"We're basically asking for necessities because the cost of living here in Los Angeles has skyrocketed in the last years and it's just getting too expensive to live here," Emely Lopez, a housekeeper at the Intercontinental Hotel, told KTLA.

The strike is the latest labor dispute to reach this extreme in Los Angeles, which has seen multiple over the last few months, per the Times. Teachers went on strike earlier this year over similar economic concerns, and a union that covers over 20,000 dock workers saw a tentative agreement reached last month, ending a strike that slowed operations at ports including LA.

Hollywood's writers strike has crossed the two month mark with no deal, as young job-seekers have told Insider's Reed Alexander they are turning to side hustles while the industry grinds to a near halt. The union representing actors across Hollywood is also in the midst of negotiations over a new contract, and could join the writers on strike if the two sides don't come to an agreement.