Thousands of hotel workers continue to strike throughout the city of Los Angeles.

All hotel staffers are part of the Unite Here Local 11 union and continue to strike for fair wages to keep up with the rising housing costs and better working conditions.

The COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted hotels and caused a lot of stress for hotel workers over the last three years. According to Unite Here Local 11 co-president Kurt Petersen, 95% of the union’s members lost their jobs during the pandemic.

“Many of them lost health insurance in the worst health crisis we have had in modern history,” he said.

Petersen joined “Inside the Issues” host Alex Cohen to talk about the ongoing strike and what has been done to reach an agreement between the hotels and their workers.

Even though hotels have started to re-open and make a recovery from the pandemic, things have not gone back to exactly how they were before. Petersen says hotels have now decided to have fewer employees do more work.

“The best example of that is the elimination of daily room cleaning,” he said. “If you had told me [hotels] would try to get rid of it, I would have said 'never.' But they did.”

During the pandemic, hotels were part of Project Roomkey, an initiative to move homeless people off the streets and into hotel rooms. This program continues to be a wedge issue between hotels and the staff.

Petersen attributed the "unsuccessful" execution to the hotels, who he claimed were against Project Roomkey. He added that many of the union’s members like having the unhoused community at the hotel, and he hopes the program can continue.

As negotiations continue, the hotels have criticized the strike for having ill effects and maintain they are offering a fair deal for hotel workers in Southern California.

"These work stoppages are ill-advised and only hurt our employees and the greater Los Angeles area,” said Keith Grossman, a spokesperson for the Coordinated Bargaining group that represents dozens of hotels in Los Angeles.

Grossman added that the hotels have offered an immediate $2-per-hour increase in pay, with an additional $3 added within 12 months. 

Petersen says the hotel's wage increases aren’t enough, especially considering that the hotel industry has rebounded from the pandemic.

During the strike, the LA Times reported that City Attorney Heidi Feinstein Soto sent a memo warning elected officials to not get involved in labor disputes like the hotel strike.

“Of course, elected officials should be able to protest and talk about anything they want to. That’s why they're elected. They're elected for their opinions. They are not neutral parties,” Petersen said. “This idea that somehow they can’t do it, it’s frankly absurd.”

So far, only the Westin Bonaventure hotel — the largest hotel in LA — has reached an agreement with their hotel workers. Unite Here Local 11 has convinced organizations to move their conferences to the hotel while the strike continues.

"It’s in a market that the industry keeps telling us hasn’t come back from the pandemic, so our response is, 'Look, if this hotel that’s in a market that’s kind of middling along can do it, so can hotels in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, where they are booming,'" Petersen said.

Let Inside the Issues know your thoughts and watch Monday through Friday at 8 and 11 p.m. on Spectrum News 1.