New campaign finance reports filed this week with the City of West Hollywood reveal the vast amounts of money and manpower UNITE HERE Local 11 has invested in their multi-pronged effort to manipulate the outcome of the City Council election in November.
As it has done in past election cycles, the controversial labor union has thrown its weight, its workforce and its deep pockets behind the candidates it wants in office: Mayor John M. Erickson and Danny Hang.
UNITE HERE has been raising and spending money to campaign independently for Erickson and Hang under multiple shell committees, including “Renters and Workers for West Hollywood in Support of Erickson and Hang and Against Nickle, Block, and Crockeram for City Council 2024, Sponsored by UNITE HERE Local 11.”
That committee has raised around $150,000 for its shadow campaigns. The largest single contribution to the committee came from the “UNITE HERE TIP State & Local Fund,” which contributed $100,000, followed by the “UNITE HERE Local 11 PAC” with a contribution of $50,000.
Erickson and Hang also have their own campaign committees working on their behalf.
Erickson’s committee, “Re-Elect John Erickson for WH City Council 2024,” has raised $98,165.23. Combined with the $40,000 from the “WeHo United, Erickson and Hang for West Hollywood City Council 2024” committee, his total financial support amounts to $138,165.23.
Hang’s committee, “Danny Hang for West Hollywood City Council 2024,” has raised $83,944.50. Including the shared $40,000 from “WeHo United,” his total support reaches $123,944.50.
The war chests of the other candidates in the race pale by comparison.
Larry Block’s committee has raised $64,260, including $49,000 in loans Block made to himself. His campaign currently has $47,905 in cash on hand. The “George Nickle for West Hollywood City Council 2024” committee has raised $37,784 ($21,463 cash on hand) and the Chamber of Commerce’s WEHO PAC committee, which is backing Nickle and Zekiah “Z” Wright, has raised just $4,948.75. Danny Hang has $41,688 in cash on hand.
At the same time, UNITE HERE has been running a companion campaign via the “Renters and Workers for a Better West Hollywood” committee, which is pushing for the passage of Proposition 32 while simultaneously promoting Erickson and Hang.
If approved by voters, Prop 32 would raise the minimum wage to $17 for the remainder of 2024, and $18 an hour starting in January 2025, making California’s rate the highest in the nation. Small businesses with 25 or fewer employees would be required to start paying at least $17 next year, and $18 in 2026.
A similar effort is underway for Prop 33, which would allow cities to control rents on any type of housing, including single-family homes and new apartments, and for new tenants, although no data regarding the committee attached to it (Renters and Homeowners for Rent Control) is present in the city’s campaign finance data.
UNITE HERE was originally focused on representing hotel workers but in recent years the union has shown it has much bigger ambitions.
The organization masterminded the raising of the minimum wage in West Hollywood three years ago, coordinating the measure with the candidates they supported in 2020: Erickson and Councilmember Sepi Shyne.
Expenditures
Between its two committees, UNITE HERE has spent nearly $237,557.70 trying to influence WeHo elections. That figure includes expenditures made by the committees sponsored by UNITE HERE, as well as debts and obligations they’ve incurred
$189,033.61 of those funds were spent on field canvassing.
Expenditures include $100,231.14 in support of Erickson and Hang, 61.53% of total expenditures, as well as $35,467.74 on opposing Nickle, Block and Cockeram, $6,863.35 in support of Prop 32 and $20,316.94 in general expenses.
UNITE HERE’s spending dwarfs the other candidates in the race.
George Nickle reported total expenditures of $12,509.04, mainly on campaign literature and door hangers (approximately 55.48%), field data (20.79%) and manpower (17.29%).
Hang reported expenditures of $30,012.02, with significant expenses on digital advertising (39.15%), consulting services (33.33%), and credit card processing fees (4.85%).
Block reported expenditures of $17,995.59, with major expenses on office space rent (27.78%), door hangers and literature (13.22%), and campaign materials (3.70%).
Erickson reported net expenditures of $450.00, showing the extent to which the mayor is relying on the UNITE HERE committees to get him re-elected.
UNITE HERE has also thrown down big bucks on negative campaigning against Nickle, Block and Jordan Cockeram.
$22,131.72 has been spent on opposing Nickle, including $19,500.00 on field canvassing, paying workers to visit voters door-to-door with the intent of persuading them against voting for him. $2,631.72 was spent on literature. UNITE HERE spent an additional $7,500 on field canvassing in opposition to Block, plus another $5,000 opposing Cockeram.
Note: This report was written based on the data made available by the West Hollywood City Clerk’s office at the time of publication, when several candidates had to yet turn in their financial documentation by the legal deadline.
I do not like the outside political influences that have dominated the last 5 local elections in the past 10 years. The lobbyists and developers who once or still influence elections, are now outweighed and overshadowed by the union of Unite Here Local 11 who has infiltrated our elections and has been The De Facto Special Interest lobbying group who has dominated these elections and has acted as interlopers or election deciders. It got people’s voters names under false pretense who they manipulated the narrative to support their interests a decade ago in regards of transient occupancy taxes both county… Read more »
This article fails to point out that this unprecedented level of money is coming from a national level. The “Unite Here State & Local Fund” is their Federal PAC. This isn’t local politics, this isn’t event state. This is influence coming in from an outside dark money source thousands of miles away from our little city. And this isn’t being spent to benefit anyone who actually votes in WeHo; this money is being spent on Erickson and Hang to ensure Loco 11 has to council votes to force WeHo hotels to pay the union more dues. Self serving power grab… Read more »
This “United Here Local 11” dark money group… Is this the same labor union that forced passage of Silver Creek Development’s 8850 Sunset Hotel Project by flooding City Council meetings with its union members and shouting down local residents who didn’t want their neighborhood destroyed by that project? That tactic repulsed me.. and I’d always been a union supporter. But this was textbook corruption. I was at those marathon-length meetings and saw it with my own eyes, in realtime. Union corruption. WeHo always has been a trend-setting progressive force in state and national civic matters. Why can’t we pass a… Read more »
I was there at those council meetings and yes it is that Union Most to all of them are given a statement to read and almost all do not live in West Hollywood. It should be a stipulation to speak at council that you live in West Hollywood and provide proof of that.
Btw John Erickson received money from the law firm that represented this developer. John should have recused himself from voting on this project.
Here Here!
”to manipulate the election”???? Is this what we call journalism? A union that has a substantial number of members working in businesses in West Hollywood – the employees who work hard in positions that are often minimum wage jobs – certainly has a legitimate interest in representing their interests and helping to elect people who will keep those interests in mind – that’s what we call democracy. The tone of this article is quite disappointing, never mind the trolls in the comments. I’m a management-side lawyer, but the system only works well and fairly when all sides are engaged.
Local 11’s leadership and management has their OWN interests in mind, their
OWN pockets and THEIR families’ welfare in mind. Not so much their members. I know people who will NOT vote for any candidate pushed by that Union.
Read this and then tell us if Local 11 is manipulating the election. It is clear, they are.
https://eyeson11.com/report/local-11-raises-dues-to-fund-family-and-union-front-groups/
If Unite Here only stuck to union issues concerning labor, your point may be well taken. But they have played an active role in the defunding the Sheriff a few years back and the approval of the Viper Room project. It is hard to believe that the hardworking members of the union would want to see nearly a quarter of a million dollars spent on a WeHo election when no real union issues are seriously at stake. I suspect that the Viper Room and the Unite Here leadership have some sort of sweet heart deal going on.
You’re either joking or incredibly naive.
You’re hilarious.
This is EXACTLY why grass roots/word of mouth campaigns are VITAL! Money & Power…Power & Money! Outside special interests! Unite Here has succeeded in the past on choosing our council. It is appalling and frustrating!
Best thing we all can do is tell 10 people to tell 10 people and so on and so forth….
I agree we all need to be in the local election discussion with our friends and neighbors. Especially people new to our little City. No one would suspect this type of activity would happen here. Two weeks ago when the very large poster with Erickson and Hang (dressed as super heroes) appeared on my door, the hang tag for George Nickle which I had taped to my door was removed and the bag with a jar of honey which one of my neighbors had left for me as a thank you for a little favor … also missing. Of course… Read more »
I received a campaign mailer from Unite Here bashing Nickle, Block and Cockeran while promoting Erickson and Hang. That kind of election trash is always a red flag for me.
I attended the candidates panel at Beaches Tropicana the other night. Every single candidate answered the question from the moderator as to where they are getting their campaign funding from with the exception of Erickson. The moderator did not press him for an answer. I found that very odd. Maybe he will weigh in here.
He won’t.
He’s so full of <expletive deleted> that his eyes are brown.
We know. UNITE HERE is f’ing with our elections.
We’re going to get to the bottom of this unholy alliance through lawsuits and discovery on the who, what, why, where and hows of Unite Here and the corrupt members of the West Hollywood City Council. Stay tuned…..
At the recent candidates forum, George Nickle exposed that Mayor Erickson has received $7,000.00 from the law firm of Latham and Watkins, in the form of individual contributions from nine attorneys. The developer of the Viper Room retained Latham and Watkins as their land use attorneys for the project. Erickson flippantly responded he had lots of “attorney friends” at Latham. People should note over 75% of Nickle’s contributions come from WeHo residents, which is the mirror image of Erickson, who depends on outside interests to fund his campaign. The number of local contributions for Danny Hang is essentially non-existent.
It was the firm of Latham and Watkins who found a homeless person in Boise, Idaho to represent (Martin vs Boise) so they could change the vagrancy laws against the city which made it to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and was upheld by the Supreme Court that ruled that cities have no right to criminalize homelessness and (now get this!) but the cities do have an obligation to provide free housing to the homeless at public expense! Take note that a homeless person did not go to Latham and Watkins. Latham and Watkins shopped for a homeless person… Read more »
Ask the city attorney for her convoluted defense of the Latham & Watkins money. It’s fascinating. Also, note that two of those Latham partners contributed another $5,000 each to a separate IE supporting Erickson and Hang.
That is either pay back for the Viper Room vote or an attempt at influence future votes on developers the firm may represent.
Mayor John Erickson and Danny Hang were asked if they would rescind the flyers that have their names attached from Unite Here Local 11 calling George Nickle a republican. Both stated they had nothing to do with those flyers. I call b.s. on that! Clearly they enjoy tearing down their competition with false accusations. When the candidates were asked where their campaign money was coming from both failed to mention Unite Here Local 11. Let’s put an end to Local 11’s influence in our voting. Nothing good can come from this special interest group or the other private interest groups… Read more »
If (and that’s a big if!) they are doing this properly, Hang and Erickson are not coordinating on messaging with the IEs spreading lies on their behalf; however, if (and that’s another big if) they had an ounce of integrity and honor they would disavow the lies being spread on their behalf, like John McCain did when he called Barack Obama a good and decent man in the face of accusations that Obama’s detractors thought were negatives. Clearly, Hang and Erickson have zero integrity and honor. Not one ounce.
No one seems to address the appeal of the outside union which is that they promise strong rent control, which is why our poor and our freeloaders will be voting for their stooges/puppets. Does any fool really think our weho freeloaders really care if a maid here makes $50 an hour. Our local freeloaders are selfish and only care about their own cheap and free rent. Give me a break.
here you are going on about freeloaders again. takes one to know one i guess…
This is horrific. Cry, the beloved City.
Despite my not liking any of the candidates, I would never vote for anyone who accepted dirty money from outside interests, like a union who thinks a bedmaker should legally be required to make enough money to afford a home in West hollywood.