hiltonpresser Not one Long Beach-elected representative from any level of government attended Wednesday’s midday press conference outside the Long Beach Hilton, where an organized labor group was hoping to spread the news and generate support for five experienced housekeepers who were suddenly fired last week under disturbing circumstances.

Hey, maybe next time, right? And there most certainly will be another press conference—or rally or protest or something—outside the Long Beach Hilton. The downtown hotel—and the HEI company that owns it—never seem to run out of ways to live up to their national reputation for mistreating workers, and labor groups and their supporters seem indefatiguable in the demonstrations of  opposition that they bring to the Ocean Boulevard sidewalk.

But the incident that provoked Wednesday’s press conference was not typical. Although the five housekeepers who lost their jobs on April 20 were not thrilled by their placement in a compensation category that paid them worse than co-workers and provided no benefits or paid time off, they weren’t going anywhere. They’d been coming to work under these conditions for between two and four years.

The problem for the Long Beach Hilton is that two state agencies are investigating the hotel’s tax and employment practices. California’s Employment Development Department and the Department of Labor Standards are apparently suspicious of a the Long Beach Hilton’s system of categorizing some long-term workers as temporary-agency employees who are paid by a rather fuzzy outside business—and whose paychecks are rumored to slide under the table, without the deductions required by law.

After the state investigators contacted the five housekeepers—and two days after three of the women say they discussed their employment conditions with someone in the Long Beach Hilton’s human resources department—they were fired.

Seven days later, they were on the Ocean Boulevard sidewalk.

“These housekeepers are here today to tell you their stories,” said Ada Briceno of Unite HERE Local 11—the HERE stands for Hotel and Restaurant Employees—as a small group huddled a few feet from the loud, fast traffic. “They are going to expose Hilton Long Beach for its unfair and unjust employment practices.”

And they did, in voices that were firm and calm, with accounts that were free of histrionics and full of detail. Perhaps the only clue to their traumatic predicament was surrendered by the emotion in their faces—the realization that their sudden firings from hard and lowly compensated jobs had dropped them from the category of “working poor” into the deeper pit of poor and unemployed.

But the impact of their effort barely registered at nearby City Hall, where not one of Long Beach’s nine city council members could be shaken out of their 14th-floor offices.

Leading the list of no-shows was Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, who represents the 2nd district where the Long Beach Hilton is located—and whose first election to the Long Beach City Council in an 11-candidate race in 2006 was likely secured by the roughly $30,000 spent on her campaign by Unite HERE. GreaterLongBeach.com called Lowenthal’s office to request a comment, but the staff member who took the message never called back.

Three council members—Patrick O’Donnell, Gerrie Schipske and Steve Neal—dispatched staff members to the press conference to read messages of support. Assembly member Bonnie Lowenthal sent a letter. But the closest the housekeepers got to a flesh-and-blood political representative was former city council member Tonia Reyes Uranga, who stood in silent support.

The press conference’s chances of spreading the news of the housekeepers’ plight and the investigation into the hotel’s tax and employment practices didn’t look any better—not when the news didn’t even make it across Ocean Boulevard to the offices of the Press-Telegram.

The P-T, Long Beach’s only daily paper, didn’t send a reporter. Neither did the Gazettes, which likes to call itself “Long Beach’s favorite community paper.” Maybe they didn’t realize that they could have gone Dutch on one, since the Press-Telegram and Gazettes are owned by the same Denver-based corporation, MediaNews Group.

No reporter from the LBPost.com—which publisher Shaun Lumachi predicts will be “Long Beach’s most-read media publication by Jan. 1, 2015”—attended the press conference, either, despite the inference of on-the-scene coverage that it created by placing a byline atop information that was mostly provided by Unite HERE.

But the housekeepers probably didn’t know all of that. Anyway, they continued earnestly telling their stories.

“I got my job after a friend brought me to the hotel and introduced me to the Hilton housekeeping manager—who hired me on the spot,” recounted Maria Medina, who worked at the Long Beach Hilton for four years. “I wore the same uniform and did the same work as everybody else, but when I got my paycheck, it looked different. It was issued by an agency. Also, I was paid less and there were no deductions for taxes or anything else.”

As an agency employee, Medina said she also worked without health benefits, holidays, sick days, vacation days or a set schedule.

“I was not happy about it,” she said, then added stoically, “but I have four children to support.”

Ironically, it may have been the state investigations into her plight that cost Medina her job.

“Recently I have answered some questions from state investigators wanting to know more about the situation, about how the hotel paid us,” Medina said. “I also complained to the human resources director about my mistreatment and my problem. Two days later, I was fired.”

The Long Beach Hilton shrugs off any connection among the ongoing state investigations, the housekeepers’ complaints to human resources on April 18 and their dismissal on April 20.

Human resources director Ken Melinie told the L.A. Now blog by staffers of the Los Angeles Times that the five housekeepers “are employed by an outside agency. We’ve not terminated any people here. We did end a contract with an agency we were working with.”

Meline explanation for meeting with the housekeepers, since he maintained they did not work directly for the Long Beach Hilton: his courtesy. He described the housekeepers in complimentary terms and said they are welcome to apply for open positions. He insisted that all workers, including those who work for contracted agencies, are paid properly.”

Medina maintained that she does not regret answering the questions of investigators or speaking up to the Long Beach Hilton’s human resources director.

“I am not afraid of the truth,” she insisted, no matter how much it seems that maybe she ought to be.