California officials are urging Taylor Swift to postpone her Los Angeles concerts and stand in solidarity with striking hotel workers.
Eleni Kounalakis, California’s lieutenant governor, as well as dozens of other state and local politicians asked the singer in an open letter to support the hotel workers’ plight.
Swift’s sold-out concerts are a boost for the region’s hotels, the officials argue, with some properties “doubling and tripling what they charge because you are coming”.
Meanwhile, the letter said, many housekeepers and other hotel workers cannot afford to live close to their jobs and some sleep in their cars and risk losing their homes.
“Hotel workers are fighting for their lives. They are fighting for a living wage. They have gone on strike. Now, they are asking for your support,” they wrote. “Stand with hotel workers and postpone your concerts.”
Starting Thursday, Swift is scheduled to perform six sold-out shows at the SoFi Stadium outside Los Angeles. Her representatives did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the letter.
Thousands of southern California hotel workers walked off the job in early July, demanding higher pay, better healthcare benefits, higher pension contributions and less strenuous workloads.
Since then, members of the Unite Here Local 11 union, which represents thousands of hotel workers across the regions have picketed outside major hotels in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Workers reached a tentative deal with Westin Bonaventure before the contract expires at the end of June, but negotiations with other employers have failed to result in an agreement.
The union argues its members can no longer keep up with the cost of living in one of the most expensive regions in the country. “Our members were devastated first by the pandemic, and now by the greed of their bosses,” Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, said in a statement at the start of the strike. “The industry got bailouts while we got cuts.”
Kounalakis, a Democrat who said she will run for governor in 2026, is the top official in the state to make the plea. She attended Swift’s Eras tour in Santa Clara, according to Politico.
Others who signed the letter include the mayors of several cities, Isaac Bryan, the assembly majority leader, and state senators Dave Min and María Elena Durazo.
