Administrative Judge John A. McCarrick found Friday that the LAX Hilton had violated labor laws several times during 2006. The court found that employees had been wrongfully disciplined for engaging in legal protests and work stoppages, and had been pushed or threatened. The hotel suspended 77 workers in May 2006, during a work stoppage in which employees demanded to know why a pro-union coworker had been suspended. The ruling requires the hotel to pay $36,000 plus interest in compensation to each suspended worker. Kurt Petersen, head of Unite Here Local 11, the union that filed the original complaint, calls the decision (which reaffirms workers? right to freedom of speech) an ?enormous victory of the workers.?
See "Judge sides with union in battle over LAX Hilton", Evelyn Larrubia, Los Angeles Times, October 26, 2008