05 - Hotel Strikers March and are Arrested in Downtown San Francisco

05 - Hotel Strikers March and are Arrested in Downtown San Francisco
Photographs by David Bacon
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2024/11/05-hotel-strikers-march-and-are.html
To see the complete set of photographs, click here.

An official statement by UNITE HERE Local 2 says the following:

Eighty-five striking hotel workers and supporters were arrested in San Francisco during a non-violent civil disobedience yesterday as widespread strikes continued to affect the U.S. hotel industry. Over 3,800 Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott hotel workers with the UNITE HERE union remain on strike in San Francisco and Honolulu. After months of contract negotiations, over 10,000 hotel workers across the U.S. have gone on strike since Labor Day weekend. About 650 Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott workers in San Jose have ratified or will vote today to ratify their new contracts.

The arrests in San Francisco were part of a protest calling on hotels to settle contracts and end weekslong hotel strikes by over 2,000 Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott workers. The workers are asking hotels to "Bet on SF" and invest in the city by reversing COVID-era staffing and service cuts. During negotiations in August, hotel workers offered to forgo most guaranteed wage increases and make their compensation contingent on future hotel profits if the hotels agreed to take proactive measures to boost San Francisco's recovery, like reopening restaurants that bring foot traffic downtown, staffing up on bellmen and doormen so there are more eyes on the street, eliminating controversial resort fees, and reversing service cuts so San Francisco hotels can provide the best possible experience.

"I take my job very seriously because I am the eyes and ears on the street, and I know that guests' experience of San Francisco depends on me," said Jacov Awoke, a doorman at Hilton San Francisco Union Square for 35 years who was arrested in the civil disobedience. "Unfortunately, understaffing has made it very difficult. For example, when I was short staffed on a shift and helping one guest, another guest's bag was stolen right in front of the hotel. I'm on strike because I want my hotel to invest in the city and the workers."

 

 

 

04 - Strikers Tell Supervisors, One Job Should be Enough!

04 - Strikers Tell Supervisors, One Job Should be Enough!

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - 10/8/24 - Striking San Francisco hospitality workers marched from the three high-end Union Square hotels in the heart of the city's tourism district to City Hall, where they asked the Board of Supervisors to support them.  UNITE HERE Local 2 struck the hotels on September 22, and workers have announced they won't go back to work until they have a new contract.  In the meantime, guests have been fleeing the hotels as service inside has bottomed out, while outside the strikers pound on drums and any other available sound-making instrument to dramatize their action.

Many workers described to supervisors the dirty rooms in the struck hi-rises.  Management and replacement scabs, they charged, can't approach the level and skill of workers who normally have to clean 15 rooms a day, to the standards expected by guests paying hundreds of dollars a night. In response, Supervisor Hilary Ronen noted that a city ordinance already requires basic cleanliness and services, and that apparently it is not being adequately enforced.  

She proposed a measure that would make hospitality standards, including the staffing levels needed, a condition for the permits the hotels need to operate.  "This weekslong strike has raised serious concerns about the hotel industry and the health and safety of its workforce," added supervisor and labor-supported mayoral candidate Aaron Peskin.

In the huge 2018 strike against Marriott Corporation, the world's largest hotel operator, the fact that hotel wages were not enough to suppport a family in one of the world's most expensive cities provoked a chant that has since become universal - "One Job Should Be Enough!"  It is still the most popular one heard from bullhorns on the Union Square picketlines.  "I have to work two jobs, and I am on strike at both of them," said Apple Ratanabunsrithang, a cook at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and grab-and-go attendant at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco who testified at the hearing.  "I cannot continue without a good raise, affordable health care, and fair workloads."

Hotel corporations made over $100 million in profits in 2022 and room rates are higher than ever.  At the same time, they used the pandemic to cut staffing by 13%.  "The hotel industry is recovering because our members work hard to clean rooms, cook and serve meals, and more - but workers and their families are getting left behind," said Lizzy Tapia, President of UNITE HERE Local 2.  "Hotel workers are going to strike for as long as it takes to win."

Thousands of hotel workers have been on strike in several cities since Labor Day, some in limited duration stoppages, but others, like those in San Francisco, Boston and Honolulu, until the giant corporations reach an agreement.  Some new agreements were won in Los Angeles and Detroit last year, and others since the strikes began, in Greenwich and New Haven CT, Providence RI, and San Diego CA.  Strike votes have also been taken by workers in Baltimore, Honolulu, Kauai, Oakland, San Diego, Sacramento, San Jose, San Mateo County, and Seattle.

See the full set of photos here:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums/72177720321055139/