UNITE HERE Local 11—California’s most controversial labor union—recently turned in signatures to secure a November ballot initiative that would force certain hospitality employers in Anaheim to pay their employees an $18 per hour minimum wage by 2022. The proposal is estimated to cost the city thousands of job opportunities from hotels that won’t be built.
But perhaps even worse than the ballot proposal is the union proposing it. Local 11 is anything but a credible messenger for minimum wage hikes.
Local 11’s recent jump in membership and dues revenue—driven by new hotel developments—is at least in part attributed to Los Angeles’ 2007 minimum wage ordinance exempting unionized hotels from paying hotel workers a minimum wage of $11.55 an hour. According to the pro-union In These Times, “[Local 11] saw its membership and revenues jump after the city included a union escape clause in a minimum wage hike on hotels.” In their words: “Local 11’s membership increased from 13,626 in 2007 to 20,896 in 2013, while its revenue increased from approximately $7.5 million per year to nearly $12.7 million”—after the union fought for a minimum wage exemption.
Local 11’s dues revenue has continued to rise as new hotels have emerged in Southern California. From 2006 to 2016, the number of hotels in Los Angeles County increased by roughly 13 percent, and hotel industry employment grew by more than 20 percent. Not surprisingly, union membership has swelled to more than 26,000 members, while dues revenue borders on $15 million.
Despite its hefty cash flow, Local 11 has fought for minimum wage exemptions every step of the way—at the expense of its own dues-paying members. After the Los Angeles City Council voted to raise the minimum wage for hotel workers to $15 an hour in 2014, Local 11 again advocated for an escape clause. The union argued that its own workers should not earn $15 an hour as a way of making hotel employers more receptive to union demands. Local 11’s president put it this way: “It just perhaps will cause them to be less resistant to unionization.”
Union members were understandably outraged. Alicia Yale, a Sheraton Universal waitress and Local 11 member, asked: “Why is it more of a benefit to be in a union? The union isn’t really doing anything for us.” Bill Martinez, a Local-11 represented bellhop who pays $56.50 per month in dues, “now makes less than those doing the same job in non-union workplaces.” Said Martinez: “I just wanted to be treated equal. Don’t exempt us, because we’re the ones paying union dues.”
Unfortunately for union members like them, Local 11’s record of anti-employer advocacy—and, often, anti-worker advocacy—has been riddled with hypocrisy. Despite targeting hotel employers over alleged overtime violations, for example, the union has a lost history of its own. A Labor Department investigation found that, from 2006 to 2008, Local 11 “Field Organizers” were “misclassified as administratively exempt employees and were not compensated for their overtime hours.” According to the investigator’s write-up, a “total of $192,334.14 for 29 organizers was found due.” (The union was later successful in a court case where it fought to not pay overtime to organizers.)
Moreover, Local 11 has been on the receiving end of dozens of unfair labor practice charges filed by none other than union members. In 2017 alone, numerous employees accused the union of bullying, coercion, and other “threatening” behavior. In one instance, Local 11 allegedly threatened an employee with “reprisals” for not supporting the union. On another occasion, the union allegedly tried to get an employee fired without “sufficient notice” for not paying monthly dues.
Are Local 11 officials truly the most credible “pro-worker” advocates? They’d be better off getting their glass house in order than lobbing stones at others.