By Workers’ Voice
As of Wednesday October 17th, 7,700 Marriott hotel workers are on strike in 23 hotels in 7 different cities (Detroit, Boston, San Diego, San José, Oakland, San Francisco, Maui and Oahu). These are housekeepers, bartenders and other service workers that make the Marriott hotels work. They are targeting the largest hotel employer in the country in a fight for living wages and better working conditions.
UNITE HERE has been in labor negotiations with Marriott since September and when negotiations stalled the several locals across the country voted to authorize a strike. On Labor Day in SF 900 Marriott workers marched through the city, led a direct action, and 75 of them were arrested. Marriott workers are out on strike until satisfaction of their demands.
Why Are Marriott Workers Are On Strike?
One of the main demands of the workers is “One job should be enough”. In fact wages are so low that many workers have to work multiple jobs. UNITE HERE locals are not asking for $15 minimum wage, they are asking for living wages adapted to the real cost of living and to match union standards. In many places Marriott is cutting back worker’s hours. “The owners only think of their profits and would rather have part-time workers so they don’t have to spend on benefits,” said Peter Chaffo, a banquet service worker at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel, who has worked for the company 27 years and makes $26 an hour.
A second demand is the decrease of workload and an increase of workers safety, in particular protections against sexual harassment and violence. The work speed up is leading to increasing worker injuries. The Boston Globe interviewed Mai Leung, one 71-year-old housekeeper from Sheraton Boston Hotel, whose knees are permanently bruised and who can’t afford to retire.
Finally workers are asking for an increased control on the processes of automation (self check-in boots etc) who will both cut jobs and decrease the quality of services offered.
Marriott Makes Record Profits While Keeping Poverty Wages
Marriott International became in 2016 the largest hotel company in the world after it purchased Starwood Hotels, surpassing the Hilton chain with more than 6,700 properties worldwide. Today it includes not only the Marriott and Starwood brands, but also Ritz-Carlton, Sheraton and Renaissance Hotels.
This monopolistic giant of the hotel industry is currently valued at $49.4 billion and in 2017 alone made $3.2 billion in profits. And like any big corporate conglomerate it breeds extreme inequality: while the average pay of housekeeping workers is $10/hours and a yearly salary of $20K/ year, Arne Sorenson, the current CEO of Marriott International makes a base salary of $1.3 million a year and a total compensation of $13.2 million.
As the company itself acknowledges its profits are on the rise, and its main concern is to guarantee high returns to shareholders in their investments: “We remain focused on delivering outstanding profit growth, while maximizing shareholder returns. Year-to-date through May 8, we have already returned $1.2 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases and believe we could return at least $3.0 billion in 2018.”
Let’s Organize A Broad & Active Solidarity to Support the Strike
We must do everything to help Marriott workers and the union win. Calling for national days of action such as Saturday October 20th is a good tactic to concentrate forces and organize the support of other social forces and workers.
Unite Here represents 20,000 Marriott workers in the US and Canada, 40% of which are currently on strike, yet the total number of workers represented by the union is 270,000. Even though some Marriott workers settled their contract (as many other hotel employees), this should be a common struggle, and there are many ways to involve them in this struggle.
And let’s go even further, imagine if not only UNITE HERE but the rest of service labor unions, and other sectors, massively mobilized to attend the union picket lines, and did marches, and actions to support the strike? The San Francisco Labor Council, United Teachers of San Francisco and the Berkeley Federation of Teachers have passed resolutions supporting the strike. Even more, some unions like UESF are donating to the union strike fund $100/week.
If we defeat Marriott bosses, all hotel workers win. What is needed is a massive participation in the pickets and a call for a national boycott.