Laid Off Hospitality Workers Plan to Caravan From Pasadena to Sacramento Today

Image courtesy of UNITE HERE

Laid off hospitality, janitorial and airport workers plan to caravan from Pasadena’s Langham Huntington Hotel across the state to Sacramento on Tuesday to deliver a letter urging Governor Gavin Newsom to sign AB 3216, which would protect the jobs of service workers through rights of recall and retention.

Pasadena itself already has a worker protection ordinance, but California does not.

These workers are among the hardest-hit by reduced hours, layoffs, and terminations during COVID-19, but many have no guarantee of a right to return to work when business reopens. AB 3216 would guarantee the most experienced of these workers the ability to return to their jobs when the crisis subsides.

After stopping at some of their Southern California workplaces, caravan participants plan to arrive in Sacramento for a socially distant press conference, where they will ask to meet with Governor Gavin Newsom and deliver a letter authored by five laid-off hospitality workers from across the state.

They are expected to be joined at the State Capitol by State Senator Maria Elena Durazo, Assembly Member and author of AB 3216 Ash Kalra, and Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. A group of laid-off workers are committed to stay in Sacramento and repeat their request daily until Governor Gavin Newsom meets with them.

The hospitality industry won a special loophole in the PPP loan legislation that helped hotels and food service companies receive at least $4.6 billion dollars in aid in California alone. A study by UNITE HERE Local 11, which represents over 30,000 hospitality and tourism workers in southern California and Arizona, found that 25 hotels accepted between $28.9 million and $67.4 million in PPP loans.

The caravanning service workers from Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Jose, Oakland, and Sacramento contrast these corporate bailouts to the hospitality industry with their own struggles to stay housed, fed, safe, and healthy during the pandemic.

Governor Gavin Newsom has until September 30 to sign AB 3216.