Striking California hotel workers are imploring Taylor Swift to postpone her shows in the Los Angeles area to honor their struggle, but it remains to be seen if she’ll enter her “solidarity era.” These hotel workers are among the latest to join in on Hot Strike Summer. While the writers’ and actors’ strikes in Hollywood have gained a lot of attention, workers across the country and countless industries, from transportation to hospitality to journalism, are striking to demand that their labor be valued and compensated instead of abused. Recently, 15,000 hotel workers in Los Angeles and Orange County, represented by the labor union Local 11, began their strike on July 2nd.
The workers went on strike after their contract with the major hotel chains in the area expired on July 1 without a satisfactory new agreement being reached. These workers range from housekeepers to cooks to concierge workers who have had enough of the understaffing and underpayment that has plagued California hotels since the COVID-19 pandemic. They are asking for a $5 hourly pay increase, as well as a yearly $3 hourly wage increase for the three years covered by the new contract. Additionally, the workers are hoping for better healthcare, pensions, and protections for immigrant workers.
It’s a good time for hotel workers to strike, considering it’s the middle of summer and their strike has covered the busy Fourth of July holiday. However, striking workers are concerned about the boom L.A. area hotels are expected to experience as Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour prepares to touchdown there in early August.
Striking workers call on Swift to postpone L.A. tour dates
Swift’s Eras tour has been breaking records, with ticket sales booming and stadiums in some cities drawing as many as 180,000 concert-goers. Most recently, Swifties in Seattle, Washington, generated seismic activity equivalent to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake at Swift’s concert. Needless to say, every city that Swift touches down in experiences an economic boom as travelers pack hotels and public transit to maximum capacity.
Many hotels take advantage of this by jacking up prices during Swift’s tour dates. Swift herself reportedly paid $492 for a hotel room in LA that normally would’ve gone for $150. However, while hotels are greedily tripling prices, workers don’t expect to see any of that profit. Hence, instead of allowing hotels to enjoy record profits while their workers are fighting to make a livable wage, workers want Swift to postpone her L.A. tour.
Many of the workers calling on Swift to postpone her concert admit that they are Swifties themselves. They have been entwining Swift lyrics into their rallying cries and picketing signs and have addressed the singer multiple times, sometimes in tears, as they passionately ask her to take a stand against corporate greed. Swift is currently in Santa Clara, CA, and still has several days to postpone her L.A. dates before moving on to the city. However, neither Swift nor her team has publicly responded to the worker’s calls. As a result, many of these workers are also calling on concertgoers to refrain from attending Swift’s shows if they do go on.
In the past, Swift has claimed to be against corporate greed, speaking out against Ticketmaster, her former label Big Machine, and even Apple to combat greed and protect creatives in the music industry. Workers now want her to prove her stance by heeding their calls to postpone her shows. It’s unlikely this postponement will impact the bottom line for her, as it’s estimated Swift will rake in as much as $1 billion from this tour alone.
However, it would certainly have a big impact on L.A. hotel operators, who would be forced to take note of their striking workers if they were faced with the loss of an anticipated influx of Swift fans. It’s too early to say if Swift will heed the calls of these workers, but it would be extremely disappointing if she didn’t and far more of a testament to her stance on corporate greed than her open letter to Apple or Big Machine fallout.
(featured image: Fernando Leon/TAS23/Getty Images for TAS Rights Management)
