By PAUL LAVERACK
POLITICAL MUSCLE

Below is a series of short video interviews taken at a protest in front of the luxurious Hyatt Andaz hotel in West Hollywood, CA on July 21, 2011. Speakers include hotel housekeepers Martha Pacheco and Linda Lopez, as well as Ada Briceño, the secretary-treasurer of Unite Here Local 11, the hotelworkers union.

Martha Pacheco, a housekeeper at the Hyatt Century Plaza with seventeen years on the job, explains how she came to develop carpal tunnel syndrome from the difficult conditions on the job – adding that nonunion workers in other hotels have it even tougher, as they race to clean as many as thirty rooms a day. She also reveals that unionized Hyatt workers have been without a contract for two years.

In the following video Linda Lopez, a housekeeper at the Hyatt Century Plaza hotel with fifteen years’ experience, takes part in a protest outside of the luxurious Hyatt Andaz hotel in West Hollywood, CA on July 21, 2011. Lopez shares how she and other housekeepers are under constant pressure, how they injure themselves from overwork, and what the Hyatt Corporation wants to take away from the workers in their two-year-long contract negotiations.

In the final interview below, Ada Briceño, the secretary-treasurer of Unite Here Local 11, the hotelworkers’ union, explains why the union has called on supporters to join them in picketing the Hyatt Andaz hotel in West Hollywood, CA on July 21, 2011. Briceño mentions the difficult conditions under which hotel housekeepers labor, their high injury rates, and the two years they have been without a contract.

Click here for the main video of the dramatic Hyatt Andaz protest from July 21, 2011.

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