After Weekend Walkouts, Hotel Worker Strikes Grow on Labor Day

After approximately 10,000 hotel workers across the United States walked off the job over the weekend ahead of Labor Day, the strikes not only continued but grew on Monday, with employees of the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor taking to the streets.

In Maryland's biggest city, workers with UNITE HERE Local 7 carried signs that said, "Respect our work," "One job should be enough," and "Make them pay."

Sharing a video of the picket line on social media, the union said: "We refuse to accept wages that can't support our families. It's insulting. And it ends now."

The Baltimore workers joined staff from two dozen other hotels in Boston, Greenwich, Honolulu, Kauai, San Francisco, San Diego, San Jose, and Seattle who started their strikes on Sunday and plan to stay on the picket line through Tuesday.

"10,000 hotel workers across the U.S. are on strike because the hotel industry has gotten off track," UNITE HERE international president Gwen Mills said in a statement. "During Covid, everyone suffered, but now the hotel industry is making record profits while workers and guests are left behind. Too many hotels still haven't restored standard services that guests deserve, like automatic daily housekeeping and room service."

"Workers aren't making enough to support their families," she emphasized. "Many can no longer afford to live in the cities that they welcome guests to, and painful workloads are breaking their bodies. We won't accept a 'new normal' where hotel companies profit by cutting their offerings to guests and abandoning their commitments to workers."

Striking workers echoed the messages from Mills and their signs. Christian Carbajal, a market attendant who has worked for 15 years at the Hilton Bayfront in San Diego, said that "I'm on strike because I don't want hotels to become the next airline industry."

"I used to work in room service, but after Covid, they closed my department. Now I work in the grab-and-go market," Carbajal continued. "Guests complain to me that they can no longer get a steak delivered up to the room, and the tips aren't what they used to be. I'm making less than I used to, and now two families share my house because we can't afford the rent anymore. The hotels should respect our work and our guests."

Elena Duran, who has worked as a server at Marriott's Palace Hotel in San Francisco for 33 years, similarly said that "since Covid, they're expecting us to give five-star service with three-star staff."

"A couple weeks ago, we were at 98% occupancy, but they only put three servers when we used to be a team of four or five," Duran noted. "It's too much pressure on us to go faster and faster instead of calling in more people to work."

Mary Taboniar, who has been a housekeeper at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu for six years, said that "I have to work a second job because my job at the hotel is not enough to support my kids as a single mom."

"I'm living on the edge where I'm not sure if I'll be able to pay our rent and groceries or provide my family with healthcare," Taboniar added. "It's so stressful. One job should be enough."

Daniela Campusano, who has been at Hilton's Hampton Inn & Homewood Suites in Boston's Seaport District for a dozen years, also said she is not making enough as a housekeeper.

"I'm on strike because I need higher wages. I currently have two jobs, and I work about 65 hours a week," Campusano said. "Everything is so expensive now—all my monthly bills have increased, and I need to earn more money so I can help my daughter pay for her university studies. One job should be enough."

Fellow housekeeper Rebeca Laroque, who has been at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich for the past 12 years, explained that "I'm on strike because I need more wages, I need the health insurance, and I need less rooms."

"I work so hard and come home exhausted at the end of the day, but I still don't make enough money to pay my bills," Laroque said. "Going on strike is a huge sacrifice, but it's something I have to do because I need a better life for me and my two kids."

Other groups and lawmakers expressed solidarity with the striking hotel workers, including the AFL-CIO, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the National Employment Law Project, the United Auto Workers, and U.S. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

Along with corporate price gouging that is driving up prices, hotel workers have been impacted by practices including stock buybacks. An Institute for Policy Studies analysis released last week shows that Hilton and Marriott are among the 20 largest low-wage employers who have poured millions of dollars into share repurchases since 2019.

Meanwhile, Americans' support for organized labor has hit a seven-decade high, according to Gallup recent polling. Citing that survey, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Monday that "the working people of our country are increasingly aware of the unprecedented level of corporate greed and power we are now experiencing, and the outrageous level of income and wealth inequality that exists."

"They understand that never before in American history have so few had so much, while so many continue to struggle," he added. "And they are fighting back."