On the eve of Oscars weekend, a picket line formed outside the Chateau Marmont, the prominent after-party locale where Jay-Z and Beyoncé held post-Oscars bashes for years, to host an alternate awards show. The group stood around a long red carpet, decked out with balloons, to nominate the classic Hollywood hangout for “worst performance.” It won—there were no other nominees.
The Friday night ceremony marked more than a year of a widely publicized boycott against the hotel, after it fired nearly 250 employees last March. Just weeks before the firings, hotel workers had been starting to form a union, but no protections were in place. The layoffs left almost the entirety of the Chateau’s staff—some of whom had worked there for decades—to weather a deadly pandemic without income, severance, or health care.
Marta Moran, a 56-year-old housekeeper at the hotel, took public transportation two hours every day to get to work for 33 years. Moran told The Daily Beast that the layoffs cut her off from health insurance, endangering her access to life-saving diabetes medication. Carlos Barrera, who spent 40 of his 62 years working for the hotel, said he was forced to move in with his two sons not long after he was let go. He took a part-time job at Pizza Hut, but his savings will run out not long after the Oscars. Both hope their seniority will mean something when the hotel reopens, but Alejandro Roldan, who worked in housekeeping for four years, told The Daily Beast that management already made clear it would not.
ADVERTISEMENT
“On my last day of work—on March 17, when the pandemic started—they told me, ‘With the situation right now, we cannot keep you,’” the 32-year-old said. “So I asked, ‘What about seniority, the years I spent at the Chateau?’ They don’t count. You’re like a new worker now. You’ll have to apply again.”
In the aftermath of the firings, the Chateau was inundated with complaints about its work conditions and its “celebrity hotelier” owner, Andre Balazs—a playboy figure, formerly linked to Chelsea Handler and Uma Thurman, whom Tatler once described as “a libertine. A sybarite. A risk-taker. A character from Evelyn Waugh, almost.” An exposé in The Hollywood Reporter alleged a pattern of sexual harassment and racial discrimination at the hotel. In December and January, two lawsuits against the Chateau detailed accusations of similar behavior.
After the publication of this article, a spokesperson from the Chateau told the Daily Beast that no legal complaints of harassment or discrimination had been filed against Balazs. Of the two lawsuits, the spokesperson wrote: “After 32 years of operation under the current ownership, and with virtually no labor or employment-related lawsuits against the hotel, it was suddenly hit by two distinct lawsuits claiming misconduct among four colleagues.” Both cases are moving to arbitration.
“This publicity stunt,” the spokesperson wrote of the protest, “is just the latest example of the exorbitant and gratuitous disinformation campaign being waged in an attempt to intimidate and bully our current employees who dared to choose lucrative staff positions with wages and benefits significantly exceeding those offered at hotels in our region, both unionized and not.”
As complaints mounted, high-profile figures began to sign on to the boycott. Jane Fonda led the charge; director Alfonso Cuarón and Martin Sheen followed suit. Now, the list of endorsements reads like an awards show invite list: Lena Headey, Edie Falco, Constance Zimmer, Eliza Dushku, Alison Pill, and Joshua Oppenheimer, among others.
Not everyone got the memo: On Thursday evening, Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming movie, Being the Ricardos, was scheduled to film at the hotel. But when activists reached out to Hollywood unions, the crew canceled last minute to avoid crossing the picket line. By the next morning, more actors had joined the boycott. Unite Here Local 11, the hospitality union organizing the campaign, announced in a press release Friday that Amanda Seyfried, Christopher Abbott, Sarah Silverman, and Daveed Diggs had gotten on board.
In the past month, pressure on the hotel has mounted. In early April, Balazs was sued by his own partners at another resort, over alleged mismanagement at the Hollywood establishment and self-dealing. A week later, Unite Here sent a letter to the Small Business Association calling for an investigation into a $1.95 million PPP loan approved for the hotel in February. According to SBA data, the money was earmarked for payroll—even though the Chateau had dismissed the vast majority of its staff a year prior.
“We think it’s unfair and contrary to the mission of this program that the Chateau would receive money and not bring back the workers they stated on the application that they would bring back,” Unite Here Co-President Kurt Petersen told The Daily Beast.
The Chateau's spokesperson told The Daily Beast the hotel was “complying with all federal laws and regulations regarding the proper uses of the loan,” and had directed $200,000 of the $1.95-million to payroll.
Laid-off workers have been pushing for a boycott of the celebrity hangout.
Jean-Baptiste Lacroix/AFP via GettyAt the crux of the protesters’ demands is what’s called the “right to recall”—or a commitment from the hotel to rehire former employees if and when they choose to reopen. Legally speaking, Chateau Marmont is required to do so. Last year, Los Angeles adopted a recall ordinance, mandating businesses to call back furloughed and laid-off employees in order of seniority, rather than making new hires. And just last week, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 93 extending the right to recall across the state.
Petersen isn’t certain that the Chateau will comply: “They have the legal right to get their job back. But we expect the Chateau to do everything they can to avoid that responsibility. That’s why we’re so grateful to the endorsers.”
But the Chateau maintains that it already has complied, noting in a post-publication comment that 10 employees had been rehired in accordance with the law. Some others, the spokesperson wrote, had declined to return for personal reasons.
In addition, there were several employees with tenure who were contacted and chose not to come back during a pandemic, had moved out of the area or declined to come back for personal reasons. Once they declined or failed to respond, the next person in line according to tenure was contacted.
While the hotel was singled out for bad deeds at the ceremony on Friday, some former staffers were recognized for just the opposite. Walter Almenderez got a nomination for best leadership over his organizing around SB93. Thomasina Gross, a Black banquet server who sued the Chateau in January, claiming leadership passed her over for promotions in favor of white colleagues, was nominated for silence-breaker. A worker named Jordan Mueck got the nod for civic engagement, for traveling to Arizona and Georgia to knock on doors in the 2020 election. For their decades at the Chateau, Barrera was up for courage; Moran for best trailblazer. Like the hotel’s, the categories have no other nominees, so their odds look good.
“The main part of the action is to have our own awards for the Chateau workers,” Petersen said. “That’s our ceremony.”
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that the Chateau Marmont was located in West Hollywood. It is located in Los Angeles, near the West Hollywood border.
