On Friday, Oct. 12, some 400 Hilton hotel workers in Seattle walked off the job as part of a one-week strike that will end in the early morning of Oct. 19, according to Unite Here.
And on Monday, Oct. 14, approximately 700 Omni Hotels & Resorts employees in Boston joined the strikes occurring in the area, bringing the city’s total number of striking hotel workers to nearly 1,300. The latest wave of strikes includes Omni Parker House, which claims to be the longest continuously operating hotel in the U.S.
The Seattle strikes are taking place at DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Seattle Airport and Hilton Seattle Airport & Conference Center.
Hilton and Omni did not immediately respond to a Hotel Dive request for comment.
"I’m on strike so I can provide for my family. My last check was $300 short just for rent, and I had to go to the food bank so we'd have enough to eat,” said Pearl Johnson, a housekeeper at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Seattle Airport, in a statement.
As of Monday, there are roughly 5,000 hotel workers on strike nationwide across Seattle, Boston, Honolulu and San Francisco.
Since the nationwide hotel strikes began on Sept. 1, two hotels that went on strike have reached contract agreements, ending labor disputes. In Greenwich, Connecticut, Hyatt Regency Greenwich employees won wage increases and “more affordable” healthcare, according to Unite Here. And in San Diego, workers at Hilton San Diego Bayfront ratified a contract after striking for 38 days, the union shared on the social media platform X.
Workers at Omni Providence Hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, also ratified a contract after authorizing a strike — though those employees never walked out.
Approximately 40,000 union hotel workers across the U.S. and Canada are negotiating new contracts this year. Workers are fighting for higher wages that better meet the rising cost of living and a reversal of pandemic-era staffing conditions.
