2024-09-02 02:49:52
By Ernie Gotta
More than 10,000 union hotel workers are striking in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston and Greenwich, Connecticut, disrupting hotel benefits over the busy Labor Day weekend. These UNITE HERE members in the labor sector are setting an important example for all workers; Stopping their work is the main weapon that workers have to force employers to satisfy their demands. More rain is possible in Baltimore, Honolulu, Kauai, New Haven, Providence and San Diego in the coming days.
According to UNITE HERE “The US hotel industry will receive more than $100 billion in total operating profits in 2022, with hotel executives at Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott taking home $596 million in total pay between 2020 and 2023. While , staff per occupied room in US Hotels fell 13% between 2019 and 2022, as many hotels across the country maintained COVID-time work cuts, including staff shortages, the end of daily cleaning, eliminating food and drink options, and more. “
Before the pandemic, UNITE HERE hotel workers were winning major contracts, defending workers from sexual assault, and organizing non-union hotels. In the 2018 UNITE HERE strike at Marriott hotels, some 8,000 room cleaners, bar servers, front desk agents, bell staff, and restaurant workers walked off the job under the slogan “A job should durable.” In San Francisco, for example, hotel workers earn $4 an hour.
In Stamford, Connecticut, between 2017 and 2018, an organizing campaign saw two hotels in New England’s second largest hotel market join UNITE HERE through employee organizing. In fact, it was the unionized workers now on strike at the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich who helped lead the organizing campaign that fought hotel management’s fierce anti-union campaigns and ultimately won significant wage increases. and sanitation improvements. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed hoteliers to try to cancel many successful deals with a lot of effort. 98% of UNITE HERE’s 300,000 members were laid off due to the pandemic, and employers used this as a pretext to increase benefits while working conditions worsened.
Hotel workers are fed up and are raising new demands, inspired by the desire to stop work to win. Daniela Campusano, a housekeeper at Hilton’s Hampton Inn & Homewood Suites Boston Seaport for 12 years, said: “I’m on strike because I need a higher wage. I currently have two jobs and work about 65 hours a week. Everything is very expensive now: all my monthly bills have increased and I need to earn more money in order to help my daughter pay for her university studies. “One job should be enough.”
Likewise, Rebeca Laroque, a housekeeper at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich for 12 years, said: “I’m on strike because I need more pay, health insurance and more rooms.” [que cuidar en el hotel]. I work hard and come home tired at the end of the day, but I still don’t have enough money to pay my bills. Going on strike was a big sacrifice, but it was what I had to do because I needed a better life for myself and both of my children.
“My job has always been painful, but now it’s even worse,” said Consuelo Escorcia, a front desk clerk at the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco, where workers voted to authorize the strike by 94% of voting members. “They used to hire six of us to clean the lobby and public bathrooms each shift, but since COVID, we only have two or three. I have sacrificed a lot for this work over the years. I had to do four surgeries on my arm and shoulder. But in return, the hotel has made my job harder.
Don’t pass UNITE HERE choices are: Fairmont Copley, Hilton Boston Park Plaza, Hilton Boston Logan, Hampton Inn/Homewood Suites Seaport, Westin Seattle, Seattle Airport Hilton & Conference Center, Doubletree Seattle Airport, SeaTac Hilton, San Francisco The Marriott Marquis, the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich, Connecticut, or wherever you see a picket line!
Workers’ Voice stands in solidarity with the unionized hotel workers and their strike. Everyone is encouraged to come to the picket lines with co-workers, friends and family. We also extend our solidarity to all hotel workers in negotiations and if more workers across the country go on strike we will still be there in solidarity!
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