Thousands of unionized hotel workers plan to stage a rally in nearly 20 cities on May 1 to demand significant pay raises ahead of contract negotiations with major chains.
The talks with hotel operators Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide and Hyatt Hotels will cover about 40,000 workers who are seeking new contracts for the first time since the pandemic.
Workers taking to the streets in 18 US and Canadian cities – including Boston, Baltimore, Miami, San Francisco and Toronto – want to reverse pandemic-era staffing and service cuts that eliminated daily housekeeping in some hotels, as well as duplicate the big pay hikes that organized workers across the nation have been winning in the recent years.
“There have been a series of staffing and service cuts that have led to both painful working conditions for the workers and reduced services for the guests,” said Gwen Mills, president of Unite Here, the labor group that represents some 300,000 hotel workers across the US and Canada.
Hotel staffing per occupied room is down 13% since 2019, the union said.
At the same time, US hotel revenue per available room in 2023 increased 5%, to $100 per room, from the previous year and was the highest on record, according Costar data.
A Hyatt spokesperson said the hotel chain “has a long history of cooperating with the unions that represent our employees, including Unite Here.”
“Under recent collective bargaining agreements with Unite Here, Hyatt hotels continue to offer our eligible employees competitive wages and benefits, as well as comprehensive healthcare coverage,” said Michael D’Angelo, head of labor relations – Americas, Hyatt.
Marriott, and Hilton did not immediately respond for comment.
After domestic travel cratered during the pandemic, hotel operators hiked up room rates during the travel boom that followed. In response, workers are demanding a larger share of profits.
Workers will picket outside hotels on May Day, the international workers’ holiday, in the first multi-city contract campaign since 2018, when housekeepers in some markets secured panic buttons.
However, the demonstrators may face some pressure in markets still recovering from the pandemic, such as San Francisco and Hawaii, analysts said.
“Profitability for hotel owners [in San Francisco] is still way off of 2019 levels, so hotel owners will be very reluctant to give an inch to the unions as they really can’t afford to do so,” Truist analyst Patrick Scholes told Reuters.
Travel began booming in 2021 but many hotels leaned into the staffing and service cuts like optional room cleanings that they made during learners times , the union claims.
“Our union is not going to let these changes stick,” Unite Here President D Taylor said in a statement during the pandemic.
The planned rally comes after a significant year for labor negotiations in the U.S. — with manufacturing, auto and hospitality workers in Las Vegas among those that landed record contracts as a tight labor market allowed employees to flex more bargaining power.
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The Culinary and Bartenders Unions in Las Vegas, Unite Here affiliates, said its workers got a 10% wage increase in the first year of its new five-year contract and a total 32% in raises, a record in its history.
Last year, Chicago hoteliers averted a strike by ratifying a contract that raised non-tipped workers’ wages to a $25 per hour minimum and requires that hotels clean guest rooms every day, according to a Unite Here press release.
Non-union budget hotels across the country have struggled to attract guests this year as inflation takes a larger bite out of the their travel budgets, as The Post previously reported.
Econo Lodge, Days Inn, Super 8 and SureStay posted occupancy rates of 48.7% in the first quarter – down 5% from a year ago, according to preliminary first quarter data from STR/CoStar, which tracks the hotel industry.
With Post wires
