OCCUPY La Playa Hotel Protest

More than 200 people took part in the Occupy La Playa Hotel Protest on October 28, 2011.

The action included civil disobedience in which 16 community activists and hotel workers blocked the street in front of La Playa Hotel until arrested by Carmel police.

La Playa Hotel workers and their community supporters are outraged at the announcement of the abrupt and unnecessary closing of the hotel on November 1, 2011.  More than 100 La Playa Hotel workers will lose their jobs, including 85 UNITE HERE Local 483 members who are housekeeping, laundry, bell, front desk, dining, kitchen, grounds, and maintenance workers.  The majority of union members have worked more than 20 years at the hotel.  La Playa Hotel is currently owned and operated by the Cope family’s Nob Hill Properties, headquartered in San Francisco.  The buyer is Classic Hotels & Resorts, a subsidiary of Phoenix-based Grossman Company Properties.

No Severance Pay, No Job Recall, No Justice, NO PEACE!

This is a local example of the corporate super wealthy—the top 1%–enriching themselves at the expense of the workers and our community—the 99% rest of us.  The Cope family owners are selling their luxury hotel, but have thus far refused to protect their loyal workers’ jobs in the transfer of ownership and have refused to offer the workers even a penny of “severance” pay for all their decades of hard work.  The new buyers have made not even the most minimal gesture of decency to offer the workers’ old jobs back when the hotel reopens.

The workers and community demand justice for La Playa Hotel workers:

1) a fair severance package honoring the workers’ many years of service, and

2) first recall rights for the workers’ jobs when the hotel reopens.