10:55am Reporting by Greggory Moore | On Thursday night, the Press-Telegram will honor 27 “amazing women” at a gala banquet at the Hilton Long Beach. But at least some of the nominees are ambivalent about attending.
The reason? For more than two years the downtown hotel has been the target of a boycott for its alleged treatment of its workers, including the hotel’s non-union status and its recent firing of five “whistle-blowers.” And some nominees are disappointed by the Press-Telegram’s choice of venue.
“What I don’t understand principally and primarily,” says Christi Wilkins, a nominee in the Arts & Culture category for her work with Dramatic Results, a nonprofit arts education program, “is, if the P-T on the one hand is saying, ‘We’re pro-labor,’ my basic question to them has been: ‘Then why the heck are you holding this event here? There are all kinds of other venues and hotels in downtown Long Beach — let alone all of Long Beach — in which you could have held this event.’ And I’ve not gotten a satisfactory response.”
Wilkins reports that when she communicated her qualms to the Press-Telegram, “Their response was, ‘Well, you can come in through a side entrance, and that way you don’t have to cross the picket line.'”
Wilkins names the source of this suggestion as Sue Schmitt, the Press-Telegram’s editor and general manager. Though multiple calls to Schmitt seeking comment went unreturned, Long Beach Post has independently verified that this was indeed the suggestion conveyed to Wilkins.
In a subsequent, September 9 e-mail to Wilkins, Schmitt wrote, “I am sorry that Unite HERE [a union organization that has helped organize the boycott against the Hilton Long Beach] has used guilt tactics to ruin what should be a positive experience for you and others. … If there was a union in place and its workers were on strike, we would not hold the gala at the hotel. … I might also note that Unite HERE also protested outside the event last year, but it did not deter the nearly 400 citizens of social conscience who attended, including some who I know are union members.”
The Found Theatre’s Virginia DeMoss, also one of the three nominees in the Arts & Culture category, is choosing not to attend.
“I’m a real supporter of labor,” DeMoss says, “and I don’t want to get involved in a labor dispute for an event type of thing. … It’s been going on for two years, [and] the Press-Telegram has known about it. I’m not saying they shouldn’t necessarily have held their event there, but it just made some of us have to make a decision whether to go or not. … I was really honored to be nominated and would have loved to go to the event, but sometimes you have to do what you feel is right, so that’s what I’m doing. I don’t know if I’m right or not, but it feels better [not to go]. I don’t think I could’ve walked past people who are having a labor dispute and go in and have a nice dinner and that sort of thing.”
Wilkins, however, is choosing to attend, as is Frieda Caplan, who is nominated in the Business category for her work with Frieda’s Inc., a specialty wholesale produce company.
“As of literally 9:30 a.m. [Monday] morning, Frieda Caplan and I said yes, we will attend,” says Wilkins. “We decided that if we just don’t go, are we really doing good for the cause of labor? Especially since we didn’t know what else we could do to bring this to greater attention. Almost everybody that we have spoken with did not know this [labor] dispute existed. So when we got last-minute information last Friday from the P-T [saying they] had 400 people [at the awards] last year, Frieda and I looked at each other and said, ‘Hm, 400 community members that are paying money to go there. These are people that are active in the community. Maybe we could do better and more service to the cause of labor to go get a captive audience of people that are involved in the community and say: Hey, do you know this is happening?'”
Wilkins and Caplan agree that this is a nuanced issue. “There’s a lot of facts on both sides,” says Caplan, “[but] I felt it was important that I take a position that … there has to be a consideration of these people that is not evident right now. … I was brought up with a great deal of respect for trade unions, and I feel with the weakening of the unions now, we’re also losing the middle class. This is very important to me.”
Wilkins says that the gala’s being held at the Hilton “has caused a lot of emotional upheaval for a lot of us. … As women we’re connected to the community, we want to do good, we want to be part of the solution … And we’re all so grateful to have an opportunity to be recognized for our good work. And [holding the event at the Hilton] puts us in a real quandary.”