New Otani Protesters Don’t Speak for the Community
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Although the numbers looked impressive, the majority of the people participating in the [New Otani] protest neither live nor work in Little Tokyo (“AFL-CIO Chief to Press L.A. Case in Japan,” Feb. 20).
The New Otani Hotel only has 285 employees, of which 118 have requested a secret ballot vote.
In fact, we know that many of the protesters are college students who live on the Westside, and the majority of protesters are union members from other labor organizations.
They clearly do not speak for the New Otani employees nor for the Little Tokyo community. Twenty-one Japanese American community groups representing more than 9,200 members support the New Otani employees’ request for a secret ballot election.
Why did The Times’ article fail to mention this?
The organizations supporting a secret ballot election include the 2,200-member Southern California Gardeners Federation, the 4,000-member Kenjinkai Kyogi-kai, the Nisei Week Festival Committee, the Little Tokyo Business Assn., the Koresha Chusho Ku-kai, the Japanese Community Pioneer Center, the Southern California Japanese Women’s Society, the Kansai Club of Southern California, the Orange County Japanese American Assn. and numerous chapters of the prominent civil rights organization the Japanese American Citizens League, including the downtown Los Angeles, Pasadena, Venice-Culver, South Bay, Gardena Valley, Imperial Valley, Las Vegas, Arizona, Santa Maria, San Gabriel Valley and West Los Angeles chapters.
ICHIRO CHARLES TAKEDA
President
Japanese Chamber of Commerce of Southern California
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