UNITE HERE LOCAL 11: Ahead of Days of Awe, Over 80 Jewish Leaders, Including Paul Koretz, Boycott Hotels in the Heart of Pico-Robertson

Jewish leaders, congregations and organizations mobilize in solidarity with hotel workers at Cameo Beverly Hills and Marriott Beverly Hills

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As the Jewish community prepares for holiest period of the Jewish calendar in the coming weeks, over eighty leaders in the Jewish community have signed a pledge calling for a boycott of the Remington Hospitality-operated Cameo Beverly Hills Hotel and Marriott Beverly Hills, two hotels located in the heart of Pico-Robertson, over labor issues. The signatories include prominent leaders like Paul Koretz, rabbis, Jewish communal leaders and community members; and congregations and organizations like Boyle Heights Chavurah, Congregation Or Hamidbar, the national Jewish Labor Committee, the Jewish Liberation Fund, Keeping It Sacred, and Nefesh LA.

“We learn in our Jewish tradition to uphold the dignity of work and workers. Paying workers a timely fair wage is part of that tradition. In keeping with our values we, as Jewish community leaders, ask the Cameo Beverly Hills and Marriott Beverly Hills, hotels located in neighborhoods where many Jewish Angelenos live and host guests, to be fair and just to their workers. We hope that you will move quickly to do so,” said Rabbi Susan Goldberg, Nefesh LA.

Adds Rabbi Robin Podolsky, “I will support this boycott. We are taught in our tradition: ‘You may not oppress your neighbor or rob them; the wages of a hired worker may not stay with you all night,’ (Leviticus 19:13) and ‘You may not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy whether he is of your people or of the strangers who are in the land within your gate,’ (Deuteronomy 24:14). Even in our secular society, I do believe that these are very good principles to live by.”

The growth of the boycott comes as over 40 Hollywood writers, editors and producers pledged to boycott the hotels over Labor day weekend, as well as over 80 political leaders.

Workers launched a boycott of Remington Hospitality’s Beverly Hills-adjacent properties, the Cameo Hotel Beverly Hills and Marriott Beverly Hills hotels, in August. The Cameo has failed to agree to a fair contract for its unionized employees. The Marriott has refused to agree to a fair process for workers to decide whether to unionize.

The Cameo is also subject of a pending “wage theft” complaint filed with the California Labor Commissioner alleging that the hotel has failed to pay housekeeping workers for “off the clock” work performed prior to their scheduled shifts and that workers have been unable to take rest breaks to which they are legally entitled. The workers’ union, UNITE HERE Local 11, has also presented these allegations to the Los Angeles Police Commission, which is charged under the newly passed Responsible Hotel Ordinance with determining whether to award the Cameo a permit to operate.

The boycott follows a year of strikes across the Southern California hotel sector that have resulted in historic wage increases and other improvements for workers at 73 hotels. The Cameo, along with the Hilton Garden Inn El Segundo, have failed to sign this historic agreement.

UNITE HERE Local 11 is a labor union representing more than 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona who work in hotels, restaurants, universities, convention centers and airports