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# Suspended pro-union hotel worker re-instated
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/suspended-pro-union-hotel-worker-re-instated/
- Published: 2002-04-30T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:15:44.000Z
- Author: Andrew Fixmer
- Tags: Business, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*Employee credits clergy with getting her job back*

A hotel worker active in efforts to unionize her workplace got her job back last week after being suspended indefinitely for disturbing guests while distributing fliers to co-workers.

The Doubletree Guest Suites Hotel, 1707 4th St., re-instated Elba Hernandez last Friday after suspending her indefinitely April 19 while the hotel investigated her distribution of fliers that complained of unfair workplace practices.

Hernandez’s suspension sparked an uprising among local living wage activists and clergy members. On April 23, clergy and community activists staged a sit-in and a prayer session at the Doubletree’s restaurant.

The following day, clergy members organized 100 people to call the hotel’s manager, Francois Khaury, and urge him to re-instate Hernandez.

Then, bishops from four of the largest Protestant denominations in Los Angeles County and the Muslim Public Affairs Council wrote letters on April 25 to the hotel demanding Hernandez be allowed to return to work the next day.

“It is a milestone in the campaign, from our perspective,” said Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, a clergy organizer. “It is so very hard for workers to speak up.

“Hopefully what happened to Elba will make them stronger and give them more confidence.”

One living wage activist said Doubletree management wants labor peace.

“Maybe they are starting to realize they can have that peace if they respect their worker’s rights to unionize,” said Abby Arnold.

However, hotel officials said the efforts by local clergy were not the reason Hernandez was re-instated. The hotel administration followed company policies and suspended Hernandez while they investigated the claim, Khaury said.

“I don’t think it was the pressure,” he said. “It’s in our policies how to deal with these situations. Once she was cleared, she could return to work.”

Hernandez said she got her job back entirely because of the clergy’s efforts.

“This is an important victory for us,” she said in a prepared statement. “Hotel management has been disrespecting our right to organize for months.

“Together with the Santa Monica clergy, we have shown that we have the right to organize for better working conditions.”

The Hotel Employee, Restaurant Employee Union Local 814 has launched a public campaign to organize the hotel’s workers. They have held rallies at a recent Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School Board meeting and at Santa Monica High School.

The school district leases the land to the Doubletree, located just west of Santa Monica High School. Union organizers have spurred the school district into re-evaluating its lease with the hotel because rents have not increased in the past two years.

They hope the school district will be able to re-negotiate its lease with the hotel, and in the process help settle the long-standing labor dispute. The city has helped unions become established in hotels leased on publicly-owned land.

“Unionization efforts at the Doubletree should be similar to what happened at the Pacific Shore Hotel,” Arnold said. “Because it’s on city-owned property, when they went to the city (council) for permission to remodel their units, as part of the deal they settled the labor peace and allowed unionization to move forward.”

> “Unionization efforts at the Doubletree should be similar to what happened at the Pacific Shore Hotel.” — — ABBY ARNOLD Living wage activist

Currently, the Pacific Shore Hotel, 1819 Ocean Ave., and The Fairmont Miramar Hotel, 101 Wilshire Blvd., are the only beachfront resorts with a unionized workforce.

Union officials said there are efforts to organize all the large hotels in Santa Monica, but they would only confirm active efforts at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, 1700 Ocean Ave., and at the Doubletree.

Hotel employees have accused the management of large beachfront hotels of threatening workers sympathetic to unions by selectively firing and cutting their hours after the economic slowdown related to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Hotel management would like to wage their own campaign against unionization, but union members want a vote by ballot, which prevents a campaign and the results cannot be challenged.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 30, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/043002.pdf?ref=smdp.com)