About 10,000 hotel workers in cities including San Francisco, Seattle and Boston walked off the job on Sunday in an attempt to disrupt Labor Day weekend travel after their union and some of the country’s biggest hotel companies failed to come to an agreement in contract negotiations.
On Sunday morning, workers were striking at 25 Marriott, Hyatt and Hilton hotel properties in eight cities across the United States: Boston; San Francisco; Seattle; San Jose, Calif.; Honolulu; Kauai, Hawaii; San Diego and Greenwich, Conn. The workers included front-desk staff, housekeepers and other employees.
In a news release, UNITE HERE, the workers’ union, said that strikes had also been authorized in Baltimore; New Haven, Conn.; Oakland, Calif.; and Providence, R.I., and could begin “at any time.”
The union said the strikes were expected to last in each city for two to three days, during a long weekend when the busy summer travel season unofficially concludes.
Among the issues the union says it is fighting for are higher wages and an end to pandemic-era service and staffing cuts. During the height of the pandemic, the leisure and hospitality industry, including hotels, laid off millions of workers as it struggled under travel restrictions and a pullback in consumer spending on services. Employment in the sector has since rebounded as travel has surged back, though some hotels have continued to keep in place adjustments they made in recent years to services, such as daily housekeeping.
“We won’t accept a ‘new normal’ where hotel companies profit by cutting their offerings to guests and abandoning their commitments to workers,” Gwen Mills, international president of UNITE HERE, said in a statement, adding that many workers were not earning enough to support their families.
Michael D’Angelo, Hyatt’s head of labor relations for the Americas, said in a statement on Sunday that the company was “disappointed that UNITE HERE has chosen to strike while Hyatt remains willing to negotiate.” He said the company had contingency plans in place to mitigate the impact of the strike.
Representatives for Marriott and Hilton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
UNITE HERE, which has more than 250,000 members in the United States and Canada, and is the main union representing hospitality workers in many large American cities, has a history of trying to impede busy travel periods with labor actions. Last year, thousands of workers in Southern California went on strike demanding higher pay and better benefits during the Fourth of July holiday.
Noam Scheiber contributed reporting.