Hotel Bel-Air Ordered to Pay $10's of Millions in Back Wages

Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Hotel Bel-Air to pay potentially tens of millions of dollars to over a hundred of its former employees.

The court upheld the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)’s finding that the luxury hotel violated federal labor law when it refused to rehire 152 former employees following a temporary closure for remodeling in order to rid itself of the union, UNITE HERE Local 11, that had represented the hotel’s workers for decades.

The decision resolves one of the longstanding labor lawsuits in the country and one of the biggest in U.S. history in terms of damages. The hotel’s temporary closure occurred in 2009. When the property reopened in 2011, management refused to rehire 152 of 176 of its former employees who applied to return to work. The NLRB found—and the Ninth Circuit has now affirmed—that the hotel acted with the intent to “weed out” its former employees so that it “would not have to recognize or bargain with the Union.”

The court ordered the hotel to reinstate the affected workers with back pay and bargain with the union. Because such a large number of workers were subjected to discrimination and more than a decade has passed since they were denied the opportunity to return to their jobs, the hotel’s duty to pay back wages and benefit funds will likely stretch into the tens of millions of dollars. The hotel is owned by the Sultan of Brunei.

Before its reopening in October 2011, Hotel Bel-Air held a three-day job fair to interview applicants for positions, reserving the first day for its former employees. The NLRB trial judge, Lisa Ross, concluded that the hotel “designed the July job fair with an objective of identifying and excluding former employee applicants and avoiding recognizing and bargaining with the Union.”

The judge also noted that many of the hotel’s reasons for excluding former employees from consideration were “bogus” and “preposterous,” adding that the hotel engaged in “blatant discriminatory treatment” and “devalued its former employees’ skills and qualifications.” For example, the hotel refused to rehire one employee who had worked as a server at the hotel for 25 years because of his purported lack of “minimum experience/skills for the server position” and rejected another 25-year employee for “unacceptable job stability.”

“I knew the property inside and out and worked hard so that it could be a five-star hotel,” said Amanda Escobar, a former housekeeper at the Hotel Bel-Air. “After dedicating 23 years to the hotel, I expected to be treated with respect. Instead, they threw me out like garbage just to get rid of our union. After more than a decade, today we are finally getting some justice. I hope the Sultan of Brunei finally decides to follow our laws.”

"This is an incredible, long-overdue victory for the former workers of the Hotel Bel-Air, who were kicked out of the hotel for no other reason than the hotel’s desire to bust the union. These illegal and immoral practices have no place in our city,” said Kurt Petersen, co-president of UNITE HERE Local 11. He added: “The decade-long delay demonstrates the critical need for labor law reform. But more than anything it reflects the determination of our members to never give up.”

The Hotel Bel-Air and the Beverly Hills Hotel have long been subject to a boycott supported by celebrities and politicians, including Elton John and George Clooney, for Brunei’s anti-gay laws enacted by the government of Brunei, which owns the hotels.