hyattdemo Thursday at 5:01 p.m. I was in an armchair at the Long Beach Hyatt Regency’s bar and lounge, serenely sipping iced tea and having pleasant conversation with three companions about all sorts of things: grad school dissertations, night life in Long Beach, how much we were enjoying the spicy Chex mix that came with the drinks and what on earth was the story with the big kerfuffle outside? Were those people … picketing? Really? On such a lovely day?

“It’s union—they want us to join a union,” the waitress announced as she breezed by, moving so quickly her hair actually flapped in the air behind her (she was the only one serving about 25 customers).

We went back to sipping our drinks—and checking our watches … now 5:14 p.m. …16 minutes to go.

Protests against labor practices at Hyatt Hotels were coordinated Thursday in 15 cities across North America. The labor union Unite Here did the transcontinental organization. In Long Beach, it was joined by a collection of community groups. Everybody knew pretty much what was coming—chanting, marching, bullhorns and picket signs; it had all been announced long ago. At around 4 p.m. a couple of friendly police officers sauntered up to the Unite Here group to introduce themselves and get an estimate of the expected crowd.

But there were some secret plans, too, chiefly a surprise “water action” intended to take place in the the middle of the Hyatt lounge, for all the patrons to see. This stunt was organized by the awkwardly named Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community, something of a local hub for various Long Beach community organizations. Participants in Thursday’s protests included Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), Evolver Long Beach, UAW 2865, AnakBayan, LB Area Peace Network, Long Beach Equality, Equal Roots, and Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.

The indoor protest was designed be both simple and dramatic: at a predetermined time one person would stand and loudly announce that the Hyatt was a crappy place to work, lay out a few facts, and then another speaker would stand, and another, and then everyone would rise, bow their heads in a prayer led by a participating minister, and walk out before they were thrown out.

While Unite Here was distributing signs and choosing the best spot for the picket line, the Coalition met under the overpasses that hang between Borders and the Pike movie theater: about 30 Long Beach residents, a collection of college students, a few senior citizens and at least two men in clerical collars. Nick Sifuentes distributed press kits and lyrics sheets to “We Shall Not Be Moved,” and one of the ministers led a rehearsal—a good idea, because “the old protest song” appeared unknown to anyone too young to have owned a copy of Highway 61 Revisited on vinyl.

Everyone split into small groups. Protesters were instructed to simply order water. At the last minute word circulated that the Hyatt was not, in fact, under boycott, so it would be appropriate to order actual drinks, but don’t forget to tip the underpaid server, for heaven’s sake. We went in.

As zero hour approached I looked around the lounge to take an inventory, and it wasn’t great: only a quarter of the tables had anyone sitting at them, and most tables were topped with glasses of, yes, water.  I counted fewer than 10 actual hotel guests.  At 5:31 p.m. someone hissed, “It’s started!” The seated protesters jumped up and moved quickly to the enormous central lobby, in full view of the front desk and the hotel entrance. They gathered in a tight circle around a small sitting area, effectively trapping a few potted palms and some poor man who was hoping to get a quiet moment in to read the paper.

The speakers were brief—less than five minutes, total. Hotel management was patient, almost indulgent, until protesters began to chant at guests, “Don’t check in! Check out!” They didn’t like that.

Meanwhile, guests came and went: the middle aged women who had come to town for a big quilting expo looked worried, and the college-aged girls returning from the beach—still in bikini tops, wrapped in towels and shuffling in their flip-flops—appeared both confused and bothered. No one looked as if they had been enlightened; the scales had not fallen from any eyes.

However, the longer the chanting went on and the louder the clapping got, the more hotel management-types gathered in a ring, surrounding the protesters. There were five or six police officers present and one pulled out a cell phone and recorded a video. I couldn’t help but notice that the Hyatt’s service employees had made themselves very scarce.

Being embedded among the radicals was not as exciting as I had thought it would be: daily interactions with management may be humiliating and threatening to workers, but actual labor protests are downright cordial these days. After 5 minutes of persistent chanting a manager approached an organizer and politely requested that the protest be moved outside and onto public property. The organizer smiled and explained they would be leaving as soon as the minister had led the group in prayer.

Manager: Um, are you telling me that you won’t leave the premises?

Organizer: Not at all! We’re leaving, just as soon as we finish the prayer.

Manager: OK, but we are asking you to leave, please.

Organizer: OK, we’re going to have a quick prayer, and then we will be on our way.

Manager: So you are you saying that you won’t leave?

Organizer: No, no. Not at all. We’re leaving. We’re going to have a prayer, and then we will be leaving.

And on and on.

When the prayer (lengthened by the addition of the Lord’s Prayer at the end) was finished, the protesters let out one final cheer, joined hands, and began singing “We Shall Not Be Moved” as they began … moving … toward the door. And then, a stroke of genius: at the last possible moment the leader of the line swerved to the left and stepped onto an escalator leading to a second floor walkway that rings the lobby and leads to another exit.

The protesters followed, still hand in hand, snaking up the escalator and along the landing, the singing interrupted only once when a protester turned, gripped the railing and shouted—screamed, really—down at the guests, “This is a bad, bad hotel!”  Then they were out in the sunshine, the lobby was quiet, and the hotel officials stood in grumpy clusters, surveying the scene, flashing sudden, bright, almost aggressively reassuring smiles at any guests who made eye contact.

By 6 p.m. the indoor protest was over, but the picket line was in full swing: at least 100 protesters were in attendance, joined by former councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga (pledging to continue the good fight within or without elected office) and councilman Patrick O’Donnell (pointing out that he had chosen to wear a red shirt to express his solidarity with Unite Here, and drawing an explosion of applause when he pronounced that after years of Long Beach being good to hotels it was “time for the hotels to be good to Long Beach!”).