USA, thousands of hotel workers go on strike

2024-09-02 20:43:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The strike by more than 10,000 employees of 25 hotels in the United States, who chose 'Labor Day' to emphasize their demands, continued on Monday.

They are demanding higher wages, a fairer workload and for the number of employees in a hotel to return to what it was before the cuts due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Union Here union, which represents striking cleaners and other hotel workers, said the 200 employees at the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor are the latest to join the strike.

Nearly half of the workers who went on strike, or about 5,000, are in Honolulu, Hawaii. Thousands of hotel workers in Boston, San Francisco, Seattle and the two cities of California, San Diego and San Jose, are also on strike. The strike, which is centered on the Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt hotels, is planned to last from 1 to 3 days.

The Unite Here union said a total of 15,000 workers voted in support of the strike, which could soon spread to other cities such as New Haven, Connecticut; Oakland of California and Providence of Rhode Island.

The union's president, Gwen Mills, said the strike is part of a long-running battle to secure stable wages for workers on a par with industries traditionally dominated by men.

"Hospitality work in general is undervalued and it's no coincidence that this work is mostly done by women and people of color," Ms Mills said.

The cleaning team in hotels wants to restore the practice of daily cleaning of rooms in the main hotel chains. They complain that they are overloaded with too much work, or that they are asked to work short hours and that this affects the salary they receive. Many hotels have restricted services during the coronavirus pandemic and have yet to restore them.

But hotels say customers aren't looking for daily room cleaning and other services.

The head of the labor affairs office at the Hyatt hotel chain, Michael D'Angelo, said in a statement Monday that the chain has a plan to minimize the impact of the strikes on hotel operations.

"We are disappointed with the 'Join Here' union for choosing to strike, while Hyatt remains willing to negotiate," Mr. D'Angelo said. "We look forward to continuing to negotiate fair contracts and value the contributions of Hyatt employees."

The Associated Press news agency sent requests for comments to the Marriott and Hilton hotels on Monday./ VOA