UNITE-HERE Local 11, the militant hotel workers union whose co-president The Democratic Party of Orange County, chaired by Ada Briceno, has been holding rolling strikes and picketing for months at hotels across the Southland – including the Anaheim Hilton (one of only five unionized hotels in Anaheim out of more than 160).
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party of Orange County – also chaired by Ada Briceno – is holding a county party convention on October 21 at…the Anaheim Hilton.
Seems a bit of a contradiction, doesn’t it?
Here are UNITE-HERE Local 11 members picketing in front of the Anaheim Hilton:
They were even joined by Attorney General Rob Bonta.
Briceno loudly claims the Anaheim Hilton is unfair to members of the troubled union she runs. She claims hotels like the Anaheim Hilton do not pay her members enough to afford to live in Anaheim.
So why would she – wearing her party chair hat – schedule an OC Democratic Party convention at a hotel that is so horribly unfair to union hotel workers – and when there when there’s no end in sight to the rolling strikes? According to our sources, Briceno’s DPOC scheduled it while the rolling strikes were going on.
It is certainly at odds with her public shaming campaigns targeting groups scheduled to hold their own events at Local 11-represented hotels.
Just yesterday, she was shaming the California Latino School Boards Association for holding its 2023 Unity Conference at a “boycotted hotel” in Long Beach:
Despite the fact the conference was scheduled to begin that day, the CSLBA caved and canceled it with no notice:
One wonders if the CSLBA would have been so quick to surrender to Briceno’s shaming if they knew the the UNITE-HERE Local 11 boss was moving full steam ahead with her plans to hold her OC Democratic Party convention at a boycotted hotel in just three weeks?
Which raises another question: does Briceno know something she isn’t sharing? She must be pretty confident of reaching some kind of settlement with the Anaheim Hilton in the next few weeks, since the DPOC is actively soliciting sponsorships for the party convention at a boycotted hotel that is “unfair” to union members. If so, is she sharing this inside knowledge with her members?
This episode calls to mind the amended final commandment from George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
That would seem to apply to certain party/union bosses, as well.
