About 60 people, mostly supporters of the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community, held a candlelight vigil, on Saturday, Aug. 17 outside the Long Beach Hilton to protest the treatment of the hotel’s workers.
Sprinkled among the crowd were some hotel workers and UNITE HERE Local 11 staff wearing red tee-shirts.
Erinn Carter, who works for the union, said, “This event is to honor four years that the workers at this hotel have been fighting for respect and dignity. We have Measure N, which is such an amazing victory for everyone here in Long Beach… We want to remind people that the fight is not over. The Hilton Long Beach is an example….We will be out here until the management of this hotel does right by its employees.”
Father Will Connor, who provided a prayer during the vigil and is Pastor Emeritus of Saint Joseph’s Church of Long Beach, said, “I am here to fight for the rights of hotel workers: the right to a living wage, decent working conditions, and collective bargaining.”
Near the end of the vigil, the crowd, holding their candles in multicolored paper cups, stood along the sidewalk facing the automobile traffic for the passing cars to see them.
An email, which the coalition had sent out a couple of days before the vigil, said, in part, “Workers at the Long Beach Hilton are still calling on the community to boycott their hotel. While workers are making a living wage, issues of retaliation are prevalent. This hotel has already faced prosecution for unlawful surveillance, illegal coercion, and dozens of wrongful disciplines (original emphasis).”
Before the vigil, the hotel management said that Brian Murphy, the hotel’s general manager, would be available no sooner than on Monday, Aug. 19 to provide a response.
Barry Saks 
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