The 12-floor, 138-room Mr. C Beverly Hills hotel and inset of A SecurAlert mobile panic-button device.
Union workers at the L.A. hotel (where Harvey Weinstein allegedly raped an actress) demand heightened security, citing examples of guests exposing themselves to employees.
In the decade since the sexual assault case of former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn involving a maid at the Sofitel in Manhattan (charges were later dropped and a settlement reached), panic button systems increasingly have been mandated to protect hotel employees against sexual misconduct, whether through collective bargaining as negotiated by the New York Hotel Trades Council or through ordinances in cities including Seattle, Miami, Long Beach and Santa Monica. Now, organized labor has its eyes on more cities in the greater Los Angeles area, including L.A. and Beverly Hills.
Updated
Mar 09, 2021
The Workers Hit Hardest By The Pandemic Are In For The Longest Recovery The first fired and the last hired : Black and Latino workers are likely to suffer the longest from the COVID-19 recession.
AP Photo/Steven Senne
This Target store in Westwood, Massachusetts, was apparently hiring on Sept. 30, 2020, but the prospects weren t great at many other businesses.
After she was laid off as a housekeeper at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in March 2020, Nely Reinante struggled with her state’s overburdened unemployment system for weeks. It was a stressful, terrifying experience that drove her to volunteer as a translator for other out-of-work people still mired in the system.
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Jhonae Mazique carries her dog, Simba, to her friend’s apartment where she’s currently staying after losing her housing earlier this year, in Oakland on Dec. 8, 2020. Photo by Anne Wernikoff for CalMatters
California hotel employees are anxious to see if state lawmakers may revive a “right to recall” proposal to rehire based on seniority or propose new help. Many also worry additional aid from last month’s federal relief package won’t help them
Jhonae Mazique doesn’t feel like the person she was before the pandemic. The coronavirus stripped the 25-year-old of her job as a reservationist at the Harbor Court Hotel in San Francisco and sent her couch surfing with friends. The stress of her situation has caused her to lose 30 pounds since she was laid off in March.
But in this edition, our last of 2020, I’d like to look back.
Throughout the year, my colleagues and I have covered COVID-19’s devastating effects on people across California small-business owners, Instacart drivers, Disneyland employees and more. We’ve kept a close eye on companies such as Tesla and Southern California Gas Co. And we’ve written about how life may change in 2021 and beyond. Here’s some of our best work.
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Living and working in the pandemic
Remember the long checkout lines and toilet paper shortages at grocery stores early in the pandemic? During the second week of March, Times staff members scattered across Southern California’s grocery stores to chronicle the mayhem.