Hotel Workers on Strike!
Los Angeles, US, Sep 1 (EFE).-
Some 10,000 workers at luxury hotels began a strike on Sunday in eight cities across the United States after months of negotiations between unions and hotel chains to reach an agreement to improve wages and working conditions failed.
The strike, which coincides with the Labor Day weekend, over which millions of people travel, affected some Mariott, Hyatt and Hilton hotels in at least eight cities in the country, including Boston, Greenwich, Honolulu, Kauai, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle, as well as the state of Hawaii.
“Workers are calling for higher wages, fair staffing and workloads, and the reversal of Covid-era cuts. They say their wages aren’t enough to cover the cost of living, and many have to work two jobs to make ends meet,” Unite Here, a union that represents workers in the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation, and airport industries across the US and Canada, said in a statement on Sunday.
“The union says that many hotels took advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic to cut staffing and guest services that were never restored, causing workers to lose jobs and income – and creating painful working conditions for those who carry the increased workload,” it added.
According to the union, despite room rates being at record highs and the hotel industry recording gross operating profits of more than $100 billion in 2022, hotel staffing per occupied room was down 13 percent between 2019 and 2022 as many hotels maintained Covid-era cuts.
“Ten thousand hotel workers across the US are on strike because the hotel industry has gotten off track. During Covid, everyone suffered, but now the hotel industry is making record profits while workers and guests are left behind,” Unite Here’s International President Gwen Mills said.
“We won’t accept a ‘new normal’ where hotel companies profit by cutting their offerings to guests and abandoning their commitments to workers,” she added. EFE mvg/pd. New Labor
