Some 10,000 hotel workers represented by the UNITE HERE union walked off the job Sunday at 24 hotels in eight cities, including San Diego. Hotel workers in other cities could strike in the coming days, as contract talks stall over demands for higher wages and a reversal of service and staffing cuts. At total of 15,000 workers have voted to authorize strikes.
In San Diego, about 700 workers with UNITE HERE Local 30 formed a picket line around the Hilton San Diego Bayfront hotel, a 30-story 1,190-suite high rise just south of the San Diego Convention Center.
As has been the case nationwide, local president Brigette Browning said Sunday afternoon that wages and staffing are the factors that pushed workers to walk off their jobs.
“A lot of our feel like they’re doing one and a half jobs, and our lowest-paid folks here get $24 an hour, which is not a lot in a place where rent can be $3,000 a month,” Browning said.
Local 30’s contract, she said, expired Saturday and, thus far, she added, no new contract offer has been forthcoming.
While the overall strike has specified a work stoppage that will last three days, Browning said local workers have not yet decided how long they will keep marching under the slogan “one job should be enough.
”Union do have, she added, a figure in mind that would make getting back to work a quick decision. “The company hasn’t even given us an economic proposal, so it’s hard to know what is realistic in these negotiations, but we’re currently asking for $15 — a $5 per hour increase per year over three years,” Browning said.
Hotel workers in Honolulu, Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle also walked off the job on Sunday, the middle of the Labor Day holiday weekend.
Michael D’Angelo, Hyatt’s head of labor relations for the Americas, said the company’s hotels have contingency plans to minimize the impact of the strikes. “We are disappointed that UNITE HERE has chosen to strike while Hyatt remains willing to negotiate,” he said.
In a statement before the strikes began, Hilton said it was “committed to negotiating in good faith to reach fair and reasonable agreements.” Marriott and Omni did not return requests for comments.
The labor unrest serves as a reminder of the pandemic’s lingering toll on low-wage women, especially Black and Hispanic women who are overrepresented in front-facing service jobs. Although women have largely returned to the workforce since bearing the brunt of pandemic-era furloughs — or dropping out to take on caregiving responsibilities — that recovery has masked a gap in employment rates between women with college degrees and those without.
The U.S. hotel industry employs about 1.9 million people, some 196,000 fewer workers than in February 2019, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly 90 percent of building housekeepers are women, according to federal statistics.
It’s a workforce that relies overwhelmingly on women of color, many of them immigrants, and which skews older, according to UNITE HERE.
Union President Gwen Mills characterizes the contract negotiations as part of long-standing battle to secure family-sustaining compensation for service workers on par with more traditionally male-dominated industries.
“Hospitality work overall is undervalued, and it’s not a coincidence that it’s disproportionately women and people of color doing the work,” Mills said.
The union hopes to build on its recent success in Southern California, where after repeated strikes it won significant wage hikes, increased employer contributions to pensions, and fair workload guarantees in a new contract with 34 hotels. Under the contract, housekeepers at most hotels will earn $35 an hour by July 2027.
The American Hotel And Lodging Association says 80 percent of its member hotels report staffing shortages, and 50 percent cite housekeeping as their most critical hiring need.
Kevin Carey, the association’s interim president and CEO, says hotels are doing all they can to attract workers. According to the association’s surveys, 86 percent of hoteliers have increased wages over the past six months.
“Now is a fantastic time to be a hotel employee,” Carey said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press.
Hotel workers say the reality on the ground is more complicated.
Maria Mata, 61, a housekeeper at the W Hotel in San Francisco, said she earns $2,190 every two weeks if she gets to work full time. But some weeks, she only gets called in one or two days, causing her to max out her credit card to pay for household expenses
“It’s hard to look for a new job at my age. I just have to keep the faith that we will work this out,” Mata said.
Guests at the Hilton Hawaiian Village often tell Nely Reinante they don’t need their rooms cleaned because they don’t want her to work too hard. She said she seizes every opportunity to explain that refusing her services creates more work for housekeepers.
Since the pandemic, UNITE HERE has won back automatic daily room cleans at some hotels in Honolulu and other cities, either through contract negotiations, grievance filings or local government ordinances.
But the issue is back on the table at many hotels where contracts are expiring. Mills said UNITE HERE is striving for language to make it difficult for hotels to quietly encourage guests to opt out of daily housekeeping.
The U.S. hotel industry has rebounded from the pandemic despite average occupancy rates that remain shy of 2019 levels, largely due to higher room rates and record guest spending per room. Average revenue per available room, a key metric, is expected to reach a record high of $101.84 in 2024, according the hotel association.
David Sherwyn, the director of the Cornell University Center for Innovative Hospitality Labor & Employment Relations, said UNITE HERE is a strong union but faces a tough fight over daily room cleaning because hotels consider reducing services part of a long-term budget and staffing strategy.
“The hotels are saying the guests don’t want it, I can’t find the people and it’s a huge expense,” Sherwyn said. “That’s the battle.”
