Unionized hotel workers strike in major cities, demanding fair wages and manageable workloads amid labor shortages and evolving travel trends post-pandemic.
Boston, Bollywood Fever: Fatima Amahmoud, a housekeeper at the Moxy hotel in downtown Boston, often faces overwhelming challenges in her job. With up to 17 rooms to clean during each shift, the work sometimes feels impossible. One memorable shift involved cleaning a room with three days’ worth of dog fur clinging to every surface—an arduous task that far exceeded the 30 minutes allocated per room.
The root of the problem lies in a cost-cutting measure many hotels have adopted since the COVID-19 pandemic: offering guests the option to decline daily room cleaning. While marketed as environmentally friendly, this policy has significantly increased the workload for housekeepers, who are now expected to tackle dirtier rooms with the same, or even reduced, time constraints.
Unionized housekeepers have been pushing back, demanding the restoration of automatic daily room cleaning at major hotel chains. They argue that the current policies have led to unmanageable workloads and, in some cases, reduced hours and income. This conflict has become a symbol of the broader frustrations hotel workers face as they grapple with challenging working conditions in an industry still recovering from the pandemic.
On Sunday, around 10,000 hotel workers represented by the UNITE HERE union went on strike at 24 hotels across eight cities, including Honolulu, Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, and Seattle. With contract negotiations stalling, workers are demanding higher wages and a reversal of service and staffing cuts. The possibility of additional strikes looms as more workers in other cities prepare to join the movement, with a total of 15,000 workers having already voted to authorize strikes.
“We said many times to the manager that it is too much for us,” said Amahmoud, whose hotel has authorized a strike but has not yet walked out.
Despite the unrest, hotel chains are working to minimize disruption. Michael D’Angelo, Hyatt’s head of labor relations for the Americas, expressed disappointment that UNITE HERE chose to strike while negotiations were ongoing. Hilton, in a statement before the strikes began, reiterated its commitment to negotiating in good faith to reach fair agreements. Marriott and Omni have not commented on the situation.
The labor disputes highlight the lingering effects of the pandemic on low-wage workers, particularly women of color who are overrepresented in front-facing service jobs. While many women have returned to the workforce after pandemic-related furloughs, the recovery has been uneven, with significant employment gaps persisting between women with college degrees and those without.
The U.S. hotel industry employs about 1.9 million people, still nearly 200,000 fewer than in February 2019. Nearly 90% of building housekeepers are women, many of whom are immigrants and women of color, according to federal statistics and UNITE HERE.
Union President Gwen Mills describes the current contract negotiations as part of a long-standing effort to secure family-sustaining wages for service workers, comparable to those in more 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 replicate its recent success in southern California, where repeated strikes resulted in significant wage hikes, increased employer contributions to pensions, and fair workload guarantees in a new contract with 34 hotels. Under this agreement, housekeepers at most hotels will earn $35 an hour by July 2027.
However, the American Hotel And Lodging Association reports that 80% of its member hotels are experiencing staffing shortages, with housekeeping being the most critical area of need. Kevin Carey, the association’s interim president and CEO, noted that hotels are doing all they can to attract workers, with 86% of hoteliers having increased wages over the past six months.
As the strikes continue, the outcome of these negotiations could have far-reaching implications for the hospitality industry and its workers, particularly those who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic’s economic fallout.
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