LOS ANGELES - Just days before Labor Day, Hyatt workers here and in several cities across North America are striking, as part of a wave of demonstrations this week by thousands of hotel workers protesting Hyatt (NYSE: H) and its billionaire ownership family, the Pritzkers. Workers say the company is trying to make the recession permanent for its employees, despite significantly improving industry conditions and Hyatt's increased profitability and huge cash reserves.

IRVINE – Workers from the HEI-owned Embassy Suites hotel in Irvine announced Tuesday afternoon they are calling for a boycott of their employer.

The boycott is the second worker-called embargo of a HEI-owned hotel in Southern California, and the fourth in the country. Other boycotted HEI properties include the Hilton Long Beach, Sheraton Crystal City and Le Meridien in San Francisco. Under boycott, workers request that potential customers not eat, sleep or meet at the HEI-owned hotels.

HEI strategically buys hotels, operates them under the Marriott, Hilton and Embassy Suites brand names, employs a range of techniques to bring costs down, and sells the properties over a period of 8 to 12 years. It raises the capital to do so through university endowments from some of America’s most prestigious institutions including Yale, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, University of Pennsylvania, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt and University of Chicago.

Los Angeles - UNITE HERE Local 11 members working at two area Hyatts—the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza and the Hyatt Andaz—voted overwhelmingly on Thursday, Aug. 27 to authorize a strike.

The vote represents a major escalation of a labor dispute with the Hyatt Corporation, which has become the target of labor demonstrations across North America in recent weeks.  The vote authorizes the rank-and-file bargaining committee to call a strike, if necessary.