California dreaming,
in snug quarters

Edith joined the union when she saw the discrepancy between her employer’s profits and her wages. But time with her family, not wealth, is what she wants.

Edith, of Santa Monica, left Mexico for California 24 years ago for the same reason millions of immigrants before and after her have made the long and dangerous trip — in search of a better life.

The 48-year-old single mother shares a three-bedroom apartment with her 9-year-old daughter, Anna, and her brothers’ families. Together nine people live in the neat and colorful apartment. It is a comfortable, if cozy, existence. They have the basic amenities of American life: a TV, a computer, portraits on the walls, children’s books on the floor and a fruit basket on the dining room table.

Her goals aren’t for a bigger home — although she’d like one — but to be able to spend more time with Anna and afford a car.

“Really, I just want to be able to spend more time with her. Just that and to see her go to college,” she says.

None of the five adults in the apartment own a car. Between rent, health insurance and child care costs, the added expense of a car and insurance is just too much. The extended family must instead rely on public transportation. For Edith this means that what would be a 15-minute drive to her job as a housekeeper at Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel, where she has worked for 14 1/2 years, is an hour-long bus ride. This is time spent away from her daughter, whom she must leave with a babysitter every morning at 7:30.

The opulent hotel is not only the place where Edith spends her time away from home, but it is also the setting for what she considers a small, but important, victory. Loews, like many of Santa Monica’s hotels and oceanfront businesses, was the target of an intense unionization and living wage campaign launched in the city’s tourism-dependent beachside “coastal zone” in 2000. According to Edith, the hotel raised salaries to fend off organization before finally agreeing with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, Local 11 to a card-check in 2002. A card-check meant that employees could unionize but would not have a contract. These negotiations for Edith resulted in her salary increasing from $7 an hour to $11.49 an hour.

“Before we organized treatment was much worse,” she says through a translator. Edith speaks only Spanish. “(The hotel management) began treating us better and gave us more respect after the union came in.”

Edith says that before organizing, management would behave rudely with the housekeeping staff. She now believes that by standing up to them, with the help of the union, the staff gained power vis-a-vis the hotel. But while she credits the union with improving her quality of life, she says relations at the hotel still have far to go.

“We are considered second-class citizens. (We housekeepers) are always mistreated because of the uniform.”

In exchange for the higher salary, the hotel increased her and the other housekeepers’ workload, she says. They must now clean more rooms per shift and have been assigned additional duties. The hotels contend that a downturn in tourism after Sept. 11, combined with the economic impact of paying higher salaries, forced them to make staff cuts, and thus do more with less.

Edith is optimistic about the union’s ability to continue improving conditions at the hotel.

Derek Smith, an organizer with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), the group that spearheaded the living wage campaign in partnership with the hotel employees union, says he is confident that the Loews and many other local hotels will have full union contracts in the near future.

Edith beams when her brother Frederico holds up a hand-made poster showing her standing on Capitol Hill. The picture was taken during a march on Washington for migrant workers’ rights. The march was one of many she has taken part in during her involvement with the union movement. She becomes animated when she talks about the issue and the need for organized labor. She tells stories of dozens of migrant workers cramped in tiny houses in the Inland Empire, unaware perhaps of the irony that many in Santa Monica would cringe at her living conditions.

“Without the unions, companies would take advantage of employees,” she says. “You need them to stick up for you.”

Edith said she has heard stories of employees at other non-union hotels who had been harassed, through threats, by management trying to stop unionization. At Loews she did not experience this. The parent company, Loews Corporation, apparently decided it was better for their corporate image and practices to allow organization to proceed at its hotels.

Edith sits on her couch as the sun streams through the blinds, hitting the brightly lavender colored walls. She appears content as she describes her life. It is a Sunday, so she can spend time with Anna and her family.

When Monday is mentioned she sighs — back to work. She hopes she will not have to work much longer.

“My father was always working. We never saw him. That’s why it’s important that I have enough time off to be with Anna. I want her to know I’m here,” she said.

Back in Mexico, the family had a large house, but jobs were scarce so they left for America. In Santa Monica, the only place they have ever lived in this country, houses are far too expensive so they stay in the $1,200-a-month rent-controlled apartment. They share, but no one seems to mind.

The closeness and camaraderie among Edith and her brothers and their families is evident. The family shares cooking and cleaning duties, children play together, the living space is small, but they are happy in Santa Monica. The beach, the beautiful homes — where else in the city, she says, could you find this, even if just to observe? Besides, moving to a less-expensive neighborhood would mean a longer commute and even more time away from Anna.

“The schools are good and the neighborhood is safe. It’s good for the kids. We love it here.”