Labor union raised dues on out-of-work members while spending millions during the pandemic, new report says
UNITE HERE Local 11 isn’t done with Jay-Z or the Chateau Marmont.
A week after they protested the rapper’s Oscar night party, the labor union is now calling for the revocation of the hotel bar’s conditional use permit.
UNITE HERE’s legal team claims that the Bar Marmont’s CUP includes at least nine provisions that appear to have been violated by the party, including prohibitions on operating past 2 a.m., renting out the space to third parties for nightclub activity, and using the space for private parties from which the general public is excluded.
“Jay-Z’s decision to hold his party at the morally bankrupt Chateau Marmont may have the unintended consequence of causing the hotel to lose their ability to serve alcohol at the bar,” said Zoe Tucker, staff attorney with UNITE HERE Local 11.
The union has been protesting Chateau Marmont since the hotel laid off a number of staff during the early days of COVID. Their boycott of Jay-Z’s party drew few defectors from the Hollywood A-list. A press release specifically chastises Rihanna, Zoë Kravitz and Kim Kardashian, among other celebrities, for their attendance of the event.
Meanwhile, a new report on UNITE HERE calls into question some of the union’s motives and methods:
“As UNITE HERE Local 11 was staging their weekly protests, the union’s own membership was suffering from the same malaise afflicting the entire hospitality industry. UNITE HERE Local 11’s president Kurt Petersen admitted that 95% of his union’s workforce lost their jobs during the pandemic. The union’s own government filings, known as the LM2 in the Department of Labor, show that the union lost 10,629 members, a 37% drop, between 2019 and 2020, which resulted in a $7 million dollar revenue shortfall in 2020.
The filings also document that UNITE HERE Local 11 raised its monthly dues from $66 to $76, a 15% increase, in the middle of the pandemic. That drew the attention of two U.S. Representatives, who sent letters to the national chapter of Unite Here, demanding that the union stop collecting dues and fees from their unemployed workers.
While out-of-work union members were being pressured to pay dues in 2020, the government filings show the union was spending $4.3 million on “representational activities” like lawyers’ fees, protest costs, newspaper ads, airplane banners and funding “astroturf” groups.
The 2020 LM2 filing shows six Unite Here Local 11 employees were paid $199,989 for “boycott” activities.
“Unite Here Local 11 claims to be advocating for its workers,” said a spokesperson for the Chateau, “but here they are spending millions of dollars to target the hard-working staff and innocent guests of a non-union hotel.”
The city council’s financial backers do not get to decide who gets licensed. Recall the city council!
Oh, I know an attorney that will represent the Chateau. It is in Los Angeles. NOT WEST HOLLYWOOD. Former Council person Steve Dumm Dumm you know nothing about CUPs. LA is not controlled by a majority of Double your wage advocates at the expense of killing TOT revenue. The hotel is not at the airport and even then they don’t place square footage limits on how many rooms they can clean. Let’s just see how the Historic Preservation community feels about destroying the business of an Iconic site which could then fall in to disrepair.
#Preservationits of the World Unite!
Always impressed that a website can write articles with no human input…
What’s unite here’s projected expenditure for horvath’s County campaign? Do they include the maintenance costs on their prize milk cow?
Go do something useful.
Two Hundred Thousand dollars spent to guarantee better pay and better working conditions for Unite Here Local 11 members seems like a good deal; that is why it is called “collective bargaining”. Those monthly dues of $76.00 work out to 47 cents an hour. Not too oppressive. Had Chateau Marmont treated their employees with a bit more compassion and empathy when COVID hit, they could have avoided the ire of Unite Here. The Chateau’s rather callous treatment of their employees did not get mentioned in the story and I don’t have any sympathy the Chateau if it is violating it’s… Read more »
$76 a month might not seem much to you but for the unemployed hired help that could mean a month of gas for the family, or it might mean much needed food for the table (though I doubt that since they were probably collecting more on unemployment). But hey that $199, 989 kept 6 happy, even if they had to make union bosses happy in the end.
You make a legitimate observation; which is why Unite Here is protesting how Chateau laid off it’s workers without anything to cushion the blow of being unemployed.
Steve Martin, I agree with you, except I think maybe they should’ve reduced dues, during the pandemic. Other Steve, $76 a month doesn’t seem like much to me, when my roommate was fully unemployed, and collecting $4400 in unemployment, with the extra from the CARES act, for a large portion of the pandemic. Then he was able to collect for even longer, at less per month, after that expired. I’m not saying it’s fun to be unemployed, and I’m not saying it’s easy. But he was making more than I was. And I was working 32 hours a week. So… Read more »
Thank you Randy. It is a lie to say that these workers were on the street. The government pumped money to those that lost jobs when it forced the hotel to close COMPLETELY! SHE talking points from Steve Martin.
Please leave “SHE” out of it. I am very pro-union. And all five of the city council members want to protect workers rights. Four of the five voted yes on the hotel ordinance. And five of the five voted yes on the living wage increase. I guess I’m tired of people not acknowledging that, and trying to blame everything on “SHE.” The union had opposition to D’Amico’s campaign, and yet he still voted for both ordinances. Not everyone on the council is a “puppet.” My point was, simply that those who qualified for unemployment, most, or maybe all of them,… Read more »
Are you pretending to care about lower income earners now?
😂😂😂
The Chateau is in Los Angeles.