Three hotels in Los Angeles County have reportedly replaced striking workers with vulnerable migrants, prompting criticism that they are using vulnerable workers as “strike breakers”. This latest development comes months into rolling strikes at LA hotels since July, while some hotels negotiate with workers and the local union, UNITE Local 11.

Migrant workers have said they are being paid below minimum wage and work long hours with no breaks, doing the work of more than one person and without eating for hours. Children are reported to be among the workers, with at least one report of a child missing school time to work in a hotel. Some migrants were recruited from a homeless shelter on Skid Row; others were among the hundreds of migrants Texas Governor Greg Abbott shipped to Los Angeles on buses earlier this year as a political stunt.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney has said an investigation will look at hourly wages, whether over time was paid correctly, whether workers had proper breaks and whether children were used to replace striking hotel workers.

The LA Times invited the owners and operators of the three hotels to respond to request for comment but they did not.

Two hotels, Four Points by Sheraton and Le Meridien Delfina, are branded under Marriott International, while the third, Holiday Inn LAX, is branded by IHG Hotels & Resorts. The Resource Centre invited Marriott and IHG to respond to the concerns around using vulnerable workers as strike breakers and to the labour rights violations subsequently reported; their responses can be read in full below.

In March 2024, AP News reported a new contract with 34 hotels was ratified, promising higher wages and improved working conditions for the workers who had been striking since July.