Taylor Swift Urged to Postpone LA Shows as Hotel Workers Strike

As fans of popular singer, Taylor Swift prepare to head to Los Angeles for her highly anticipated concerts this week, they may find themselves confronted with a significant labour dispute. The union representing 15,000 hotel workers, who have been staging rolling strikes since July, announced that they resumed strikes on Thursday morning at four hotels near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and SoFi Stadium, the venue for the Eras Tour concerts.

The striking hotel workers include cooks, room attendants, dishwashers, servers, bellmen, and front desk agents, who walked out from Sheraton Gateway, Holiday Inn LAX, Westin LAX, and Four Points Sheraton, according to the union, Unite Here Local 11.

The strike, aimed at significantly improving workers’ wages in the hospitality industry, has already affected several prominent hotels, including Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott LA Live, Beverly Hilton, Fairmont Miramar, Anaheim Hilton, and the iconic Four Seasons Regent Beverly Wilshire, known as the setting for the movie “Pretty Woman.”

In response to the ongoing strike, some California politicians reached out to Taylor Swift this week, urging her to cancel her shows in Los Angeles. They argued that Swift’s concerts would bring significant revenue to the hotels that are currently embroiled in labour disputes.

California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and numerous other elected state officials, all Democrats, signed a letter organized by Unite Here Local 11, requesting that Swift stand in solidarity with the striking workers. The letter emphasized the financial disparity between the hotels’ revenue from Swift’s concerts and the struggles faced by hotel workers trying to make ends meet in the region.

“In Los Angeles, hotels are doubling and tripling what they charge because you are coming… but many workers cannot afford to live close to where they work. Some of them even sleep in their cars between shifts. Others are at risk of losing their homes,” the letter stated.

Despite the efforts to bring attention to the labour dispute and its impact on hotel workers, there has been no official response from Taylor Swift or her team at the time of reporting.

The ongoing strike by Unite Here Local 11, the largest hospitality union in Southern California, has drawn attention to the broader issue of workers’ wages in the region’s hospitality industry. As Swift’s concerts draw near, the tension between the striking workers and the hotels’ management remains a focal point for both labour advocates and fans eagerly awaiting the pop superstar’s performances.