Approximately 1,500 union workers at Marriott properties in San Francisco will return to work on Dec. 21 after voting nearly unanimously to ratify a new contract with their hotel employers. 

The agreement will increase wages over the life of the contract, preserve the workers’ healthcare plan and add protections “against understaffing,” according to hospitality union Unite Here. It marks an end to strikes at Marriott’s Palace Hotel, San Francisco Marriott Marquis, San Francisco Marriott Union Square and Westin St. Francis.

Some 1,000 Hyatt Hotels and Hilton workers in San Francisco remain on strike. 

Approximately 500 union workers at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis walked off the job on Sunday, Nov. 24.

Hotel workers at Marriott International properties St. Regis San Francisco and W San Francisco voted by 90% to authorize strikes, hospitality union Unite Here announced.

Authorization means the workers could strike at any time. If so, they would join the already 2,000 Hilton, Hyatt Hotels and Marriott workers in San Francisco who have been on strike for more than 60 days. 

Contracts for workers at the St. Regis and W properties in San Francisco expired on Aug. 14. Employees who voted to approve strikes include housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers, servers, bartenders, bellmen and more, the union shared. 

Some 700 union workers at Virgin Las Vegas walked off the job for an open-ended strike, according to the Culinary and Bartenders Union Local 226, known collectively as the Culinary Union. The Culinary Union is a Unite Here affiliate that represents approximately 60,000 workers in Nevada. 

Virgin Las Vegas employees are pushing for new five-year contracts similar to those won by their fellow union members at other Las Vegas properties earlier this year and last fall, which included “historic” wage increases, per the Culinary Union. 

The walkout is the first Culinary Union strike in Las Vegas in 22 years, and is taking place ahead of Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, which brought $220 million in revenues to area hotels last year, according to CoStar.

Nearly 2,000 hotel workers in Honolulu ratified a contract with Hilton Hawaiian Village, Hawaii’s largest hotel, on Nov. 4, ending a 40-day strike at the property, according to hospitality union Unite Here. 

The contract includes “significant” wage increases, more affordable health care and staffing and workload protections, the union said. Some 1,800 workers are expected to return to work Nov. 5, according to a post by the union on social media platform X. 

Union workers at other properties in Hawaii are still working without contracts, and “could strike at any time,” according to Unite Here Local 5, which represents 10,000 hospitality workers in the state, on X.  

Hilton Vice President and Senior Counsel for Labor Relations Adam Wit said the deal struck Hilton Hawaiian Village is beneficial to both workers and the hotel. “We look forward to welcoming our Team Members back to work,” Wit told Hotel Dive.  

In a statement, Unite Here International President Gwen Mills said “momentum is building as hotel workers across the U.S. fight for decent pay and fair workloads.” 

“Our recent settlements prove that jobs at Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott can be genuinely good, family-sustaining jobs, and strikes will continue until workers in all our cities have won contracts that deliver on that promise,” Mills added.

Labor disputes ended at five Hilton hotels in Boston after the hotel company reached a tentative labor agreement with union workers, Paul Ades, Hilton senior vice president and assistant general counsel, told Hotel Dive. 

Some 750 workers at four Hilton hotels voted Thursday, Oct. 31, to ratify new contracts with raises and affordable healthcare, according to a Unite Here release obtained by Hotel Dive. Those hotels include the Hilton Boston Logan Airport and Hilton Boston Park Plaza, which were on strike for 24 days, the union said. 

Hilton workers in Boston, which saw multiple waves of strikes, follow fellow union members at Omni Hotels & Resorts to ratify contracts with higher wages in the city. Ades said Hilton was “pleased” to reach an agreement with workers, “who are at the heart of everything we do.” 

In San Jose, California, some 650 workers at five Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott International hotels ended labor disputes at their properties, Unite Here announced Thursday, Oct. 31. Two of those – Signia by Hilton San Jose and DoubleTree by Hilton San Jose — saw workers strike over Labor Day weekend. 

“With each contract settlement, hotel workers are proving the hotel companies can afford to give us the wages and workloads we need,” said Gwen Mills, international president of Unite Here, in a statement Thursday. “Hotel workers will continue this fight until we win everywhere.”

Some 85 striking hotel workers and their supporters in San Francisco were arrested Wednesday during a “non-violent civil disobedience,” according to Unite Here. 

Arrests took place at a protest “calling on hotels to settle contracts and end weekslong hotel strikes” by more than 2,000 Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott workers, according to Unite Here. The protesters were blocking traffic as part of a sit-in near San Francisco’s Union Square, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. 

During negotiations in August, hotel workers offered to forgo most guaranteed wage increases if hotels agreed to make their compensation contingent on future hotel profits and “take proactive measures to boost San Francisco’s recovery,” such as reopening restaurants to bring more foot traffic downtown, staffing more doormen, eliminating resort fees and “reversing service cuts so San Francisco hotels can provide the best possible experience,” Unite Here said.

Downtown San Francisco hotels have seen their value drop amid lessened demand and increased crime. The complex consisting of the Hilton San Francisco Union Square — where workers are on strike — and Parc 55 hotels has seen its value drop by $1 billion, according to Trepp. 

Some 685 Omni Hotels & Resorts employees in Boston settled a new contract, winning raises and more affordable health care. Omni employees in Boston joined the city’s strikes on Oct. 14 and were off the job for approximately a week.

Unite Here did not disclose a dollar amount for the raises, but James Smith, a banquet server at Omni Parker House, called the raises “meaningful.” 

310 workers at the Marriott-operated Palace Hotel walked off the job Sunday morning, bringing the total number of hotel workers on strike in the city to nearly 2,000. In a statement, Lizzy Tapia, president of Unite Here Local 2 in San Francisco, said workers are striking “because we want jobs that are actually enough to support our families.” 

“Hotel workers do tough, physical jobs cleaning rooms, carrying luggage, and cooking and serving food, and we are tired of waiting for affordable health care, good raises, and fair workloads,” Tapia added. 

A Marriott spokesperson told Hotel Dive that the Palace Hotel remains open, due to protocols in place to operate in the event of any impact to staffing. “We remain available to meet with the local union negotiating committee to reach an agreement that is fair to all parties,” the spokesperson said. 

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.

More than 150 hotel workers at Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel walked off the job Wednesday, Oct. 9, for a one-day strike, a Unite Here spokesperson told Hotel Dive.

Approximately 600 Boston hotel workers at Hilton Boston Park Plaza and Hilton Boston Logan Airport walked off the job Sunday, Oct. 6 and have elected to strike until their contract demands are met, hospitality union Unite Here announced Monday. 

Across Boston, hotel workers have held multiple waves of limited-duration strikes as they push for contracts that offer higher wages and better working conditions. The latest strikes mark the first open-ended ones in the city.

Union workers in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Providence, Rhode Island, ratified contracts with their hotel employers, marking an end to labor disputes in those cities, according to a release from hospitality union Unite Here. 

The contracts — with Hyatt Regency Greenwich and Omni Providence Hotel — are the first to be reached in this year’s nationwide hospitality strikes, which have seen upwards of 10,000 workers walk off the job in multiple waves of strikes since early September. 

Workers at the Greenwich hotel walked out in the first wave of strikes over Labor Day weekend. While Providence hotel workers voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike, they never walked out. 

The newly negotiated contract includes wage increases and “more affordable” health care, according to the union, which did not disclose further details. George Cook, a banquet attendant in Providence, called it “the best contract we ever had” in a statement. 

Approximately 2,000 union workers at Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu walked off the job Tuesday, according to hospitality union Unite Here. 

Hilton Hawaiian Village is the largest hotel in Hawaii, according to Unite Here, with some 3,300 rooms on 22 acres. Workers on strike say they plan to continue striking until their contract demands are met. 

“We’re committed to bargaining and settling a contract, but since coming back to work after our three-day limited duration strike and meeting with our employers for another bargaining session, they just don’t get it,” Aileen Bautista, housekeeper at Hilton Hawaiian Village, said in a statement. 

Hilton said several hotels are in negotiations for new collective bargaining agreements with Unite Here. “We remain committed to negotiating in good faith to reach fair and reasonable agreements that are beneficial to both our valued Team Members and to our hotels,” a Hilton spokesperson told Hotel Dive. 

More than 1,500 hotel workers in San Francisco walked off the job Sunday, Sept. 22 in the latest wave of Unite Here member strikes, the hospitality union announced Sunday. 

The affected San Francisco hotels are Grand Hyatt San Francisco Union Square, Hilton San Francisco Union Square and The Westin St. Francis. Unite Here did not disclose whether there was a planned duration for the San Francisco strike.

Workers at four Boston hotels — Omni Hotels & Resorts’ Omni Parker House and Omni Boston Seaport and the Marriott International properties Renaissance Boston Seaport and Westin Boston Seaport — walked off the job Thursday, Sept. 19 in the latest wave of hotel strikes. 

The strikes were planned to last three days. 

Workers at four hotels in Boston and one in New Haven, Connecticut, walked off the job, according to hospitality union Unite Here in a release obtained by Hotel Dive. 

Some Boston hotel workers previously struck over Labor Day weekend, but the ones who walked out during Thursday’s second wave were from different properties: Dagny Boston, the Newbury Boston, Moxy Boston Downtown and W Boston. In New Haven, workers struck at Omni New Haven Hotel. 

The Boston strikes that began Thursday were planned to last three days, and the strike in New Haven had not announced its duration, according to Unite Here. 

Union workers at the Sheraton Grand Sacramento Hotel voted by 97% to authorize a strike, according to a post from Unite Here on social media platform X. 

Over 9,500 hotel employees who struck over Labor Day weekend went back to work in Baltimore; Boston; Greenwich, Connecticut; Honolulu and Kauai, Hawaii; San Francisco and San Jose, California; and Seattle, according to Unite Here. 

Though workers are back on the job, none have ratified new contracts with their employer hotels, and Unite Here noted that their labor dispute is ongoing. Further disruptions could take place if contract negotiations continue to be unsuccessful.

Though other union chapters returned to work following Labor Day strikes, some 700 workers at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront opted to remain on an open-ended strike, the union said. 

Unite Here Local 30 claimed that Hilton San Diego Bayfront “flat out refused to counter” the union’s proposals on “bringing wages in line with our cost of living in San Diego.”

A Hilton spokesperson told Hotel Dive that the hotel makes “every effort to maintain a cooperative and productive relationship with Unite Here Local 30, and we remain committed to negotiating in good faith to reach a fair and reasonable agreement.”

On Labor Day, approximately 200 workers at Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor in Baltimore joined the nationwide hotel strikes, according to Unite Here. 

The total number of hotel workers on strike jumped to 10,000 on Sunday, Sept. 1, as Unite Here announced workers in Honolulu and Kauai in Hawaii and San Jose, California, joined the walkouts happening across the country.

The union said more cities could “soon” announce strikes “after months of unresolved negotiations.”

Hotel workers at Hyatt, Hilton and Marriott properties in five cities walked off the job over Labor Day weekend. 

Early Sunday morning, workers at four Boston hotels and one in Greenwich, Connecticut, walked out, according to a release from Unite Here. The affected properties are Fairmont Copley Plaza, Hilton Boston Park Plaza, Hilton Boston Logan Airport and Hampton Inn/Homewood Suites Seaport District in Boston, and Hyatt Regency Greenwich in Connecticut. 

A few hours later, workers on the West Coast also struck. In Seattle, union members walked off the job at The Westin Seattle, Hilton Seattle Airport & Conference Center and DoubleTree by Hilton Seattle Airport, according to Unite Here Local 8 in a post on X. 

In California, Unite Here Local 30 shared on X that workers at Hilton San Diego Bayfront were on strike. The San Francisco chapter of the union also noted that its workers were on strike, but did not specify how many walked out. San Francisco’s strike authorization vote represented 3,000 workers in the market, but unions at individual hotels can call for strikes at different times. 

In San Diego, some 97.8% of union workers voted yes to strikes at Hilton San Diego Bayfront. According to a bulletin shared by Unite Here Local 30, representatives of the union have met “multiple times” with hotel management since July 12, but “[t]he hotel has made no attempt to come into an agreement with us.” Hilton did not immediately respond to a Hotel Dive request for comment.

Elsewhere in the region, workers at San Diego’s Kona Kai Resort won higher wages and “improved benefits” without striking, according to the union. 

In the Oakland, California, area, 91% of union employees voted to authorize strikes at Oakland Marriott City Center and Hyatt House Emeryville. 

In Seattle, union workers at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Seattle Airport and Westin Seattle voted by 98% each to authorize strikes, the union chapter shared last week. 

According to Unite Here Local 5, workers at Sheraton Kauai in Poipu, Hawaii, authorized a strike by 91%. 

“I’m ready to strike because I have had to work 12-hour shifts multiple days in a row because of understaffing,” said Raylene Pualani, a guest service agent at the hotel, in a statement. “I have lost track of how many times I have asked management ‘When are we going to restore the staffing and service hours at the front desk to what it was before the pandemic?’ Four years later and that still has not happened.”

Hotel workers in Unite Here’s San Jose, California, chapter voted overwhelmingly (98%) to authorize a strike, according to a post on the social media platform X. 

The San Jose strike vote represented approximately 700 workers. Strikes have been authorized at properties in the area under the Hilton, Signia by Hilton, DoubleTree, Marriott and Hyatt Place brands. 

Some 94% of union workers who participated in Unite Here Local 2’s strike vote selected to authorize a strike. The vote represents eight hotels and roughly 3,000 workers in the San Francisco market.

“My job was always painful, but now it’s even worse,” said Consuelo Escorcia, a lobby attendant at the Marriott Marquis in San Francisco, in a statement. “They used to staff six of us to clean the lobby and public bathrooms on each shift, but since COVID, we have only two or three.”

Marriott did not respond to a Hotel Dive request for comment. 

Thousands of hotel workers in Boston and Honolulu voted to authorize strikes this week, according to releases and posts on the social platform X from local chapters of hospitality union Unite Here.

Boston and Honolulu are the largest chapters to announce strikes votes so far, with 5,000 workers each.

Some 99% of workers who participated in the Boston vote, and 94% in Honolulu, approved a strike, according to Unite Here. 

When workers vote yes to strike authorization, a strike could be called any time after their contracts expire. Honolulu workers’ contracts expired in June, and they can now strike at any of the properties represented in their vote: Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort; Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort & Spa; Moana Surfrider – a Westin Resort Spa; The Royal Hawaiian, A Luxury Collection Resort; Sheraton Princess Kaiulani; Sheraton Waikiki; and Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa. 

In Boston, contracts expire on Aug. 30. 

More than 200 hotel workers at the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor held a strike vote, with 97% voting in favor of strike authorization, according to The Baltimore Sun. The workers’ contracts expire in mid-August.

Hotel workers in Providence, Rhode Island, and New Haven, Connecticut, voted to authorize strikes Wednesday, according to local chapters of hospitality union Unite Here on the social platform X.

The Providence union represents approximately 200 workers and the New Haven chapter roughly 125, a Unite Here spokesperson told Hotel Dive. 

According to Unite Here Local 26, 98% of the 165 workers at Omni Providence who voted approved the strike. And according to Unite Here Local 217, 100% of Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale workers who voted said yes to a potential walkout. 

“I’m voting yes to authorize a strike, because I work too hard to be disrespected by the Omni,” said Omni New Haven Hotel room attendant Carla Vallati in a statement. “While our hotel has posted record profits, workers like me are making less and less in the face of inflation.” 

Omni did not respond to a Hotel Dive request for comment. 

The results from Connecticut and Rhode Island represent “momentum” for possible nationwide hotel strikes, according to Unite Here. When workers vote yes to strike authorization, a strike could be called any time after their contracts expire — and contracts have already expired at Omni Providence and Omni New Haven Hotel at Yale.