For the past several months, UNITE-HERE Local 11 has been banging the “living wage” drum as it worked to qualify its wage-and-work-rules initiative for the ballot.
The state minimum wage is $15.50 an hour, and many – if not most – jobs in Anaheim Resort hotels start at close to $20 an hour.
UNITE-HERE organizers, however, claim that no one can really live on anything less than a $25 minimum wage – that to pay a worker less than $25 an hour is practically slave wages.
Except when it comes to working for UNITE-HERE Local 11, where it is perfectly acceptable to pay far less than the $25 an hour the union wants to impose on every mom-and-pop hotel in Anaheim.
Local 11 is currently hiring a member services representative and a grievance handler.
The member services position pays $18.45 an hour.
The grievance handler job pays $19.71 an hour. The job listing boasts the person hired will be “part of a larger effort to…win better wages” – which apparently means supporting Local 11’s campaign to force Anaheim hotels and event centers more than the union is willing to pay its own employees! If the initiative passes, can’t imagine Local 11’s grievance handler will be happy handling grievances from members whose starting wage is nearly $6 higher.
Anyone thinking about applying for either position would be better off going to work for a hotel in the Anaheim Resort. They’d make a matching or higher starting wage, wouldn’t have to pay union dues, and could rise to managerial rank with hard work and talent.
If UNITE-HERE Local 11 leaders really believe $25 is the minimum “living wage,” then why are they paying their own staff less than a living wage? This is a legitimate question not only for Local 11, but for elected officials who are supporting the union’s ballot measure.
Rule 4 in Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” states, “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
As radical as Local 11 is, its leadership seems to have forgotten this rule – or just doesn’t care about its blatant ‘living wage’ hypocrisy.
