By ALEXANDRA OLSON
With up to 17 rooms to clean each shift, Fatima Amahmoud’s job at the Moxy Hotel in downtown Boston sometimes seems impossible.
There was the time she found blonde dog hair on the curtains, bedspread and carpet for three days. She knew she wouldn’t be done in the 30 minutes she’s supposed to spend in each room. The dog’s owner had declined daily room cleaning, an option many hotels have promoted as environmentally friendly but is a way for them to cut labor costs and address labor shortages since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Unionized housekeepers, however, have waged a fierce fight to restore daily automatic room cleaning at major hotel chains, saying they are facing unmanageable workloads or, in many cases, reduced hours and lower incomes.
The dispute has become emblematic of frustration over working conditions among hotel workers, who were laid off for months due to pandemic-related shutdowns and have returned to an industry grappling with chronic staff shortages and ever-changing travel trends.
More than 40,000 workers, represented by the UNITE HERE union, are engaged in tough contract negotiations with major hotel chains, including Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Omni. They are demanding higher wages and a reversal of service and staff cuts.
At least 15,000 workers voted to authorize a strike if no deal is reached after contracts expire at hotels in 12 cities from Honolulu to Boston.
The first of the strikes began Sunday, when more than 4,000 workers walked off the job at hotels in Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle and Greenwich, Connecticut, UNITE HERE said.
“We have repeatedly told the manager that this is too much for us,” said Amahmoud, whose hotel is among those where workers have authorized a strike but have not yet walked out.
Michael D’Angelo, Hyatt’s head of labor relations for the Americas, said the company’s hotels have contingency plans to minimize the impact of the strikes. “We are disappointed that UNITE HERE has chosen to strike while Hyatt remains willing to negotiate,” he said.
In a statement before the strikes began, Hilton said it was “committed to negotiating in good faith to reach fair and reasonable agreements.” Marriott and Omni did not respond to requests for comment.
The labor unrest is a reminder of the pandemic’s toll on low-wage women, particularly Black and Hispanic women, who are overrepresented in frontline service jobs. While women have largely returned to the workforce after bearing the brunt of pandemic-era furloughs—or dropping out of school to take on caregiving responsibilities—the recovery has masked a gap in employment rates between women with and without college degrees.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. hotel industry employs about 1.9 million people, or 196,000 fewer workers than in February 2019. Nearly 90% of building housekeepers are women, according to federal statistics.
It’s a workforce that’s overwhelmingly women of color, many of them immigrants, and is overwhelmingly older, according to UNITE HERE.
Union President Gwen Mills calls the contract negotiations part of a long-running battle to ensure service sector workers receive family-supporting pay comparable to that in traditionally male-dominated sectors.
“Hospitality work is undervalued overall, and it’s no coincidence that it’s disproportionately women and people of color doing this work,” Mills said.
The union hopes to build on its recent success in Southern California, where after repeated strikes it won big wage increases, higher employer pension contributions and fair workload guarantees in a new contract with 34 hotels. Under the contract, housekeepers at most hotels will earn $35 an hour by July 2027.
The American Hotel And Lodging Association says 80% of its member hotels are reporting staffing shortages, and 50% cite housekeeping as their most critical staffing need.
Kevin Carey, the association’s interim president and CEO, says hotels are doing everything they can to attract workers. According to the association’s surveys, 86% of hoteliers have increased their salaries in the past six months, and many have offered more flexible schedules or expanded benefits. The association says hotel workers’ salaries have increased 26% since the pandemic.
“It’s a fantastic time to be a hotel employee,” Carey said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press.
Hotel workers say the reality on the ground is more complicated.
Maria Mata, 61, a housekeeper at the W Hotel in San Francisco, says she makes $2,190 every two weeks if she works full time. But some weeks, she’s called in only one or two days a week, forcing her to max out her credit card to pay for food and other expenses for her household, which includes her granddaughter and elderly mother.
“It’s hard to look for a new job at my age. I just have to keep the faith that we’re going to get there,” Mata said.
Guests at the Hilton Hawaiian Village often tell Nely Reinante that they don’t need their rooms cleaned because they don’t want her to work too hard. She says she takes every opportunity to explain that refusing her services creates more work for the housekeepers.
Since the start of the pandemic, UNITE HERE has reclaimed daily automatic room cleaning at select hotels in Honolulu and other cities, either through contract negotiations, grievance filings or local government ordinances.
But the issue is back on the table at many hotels with expiring contracts. Mills said UNITE HERE is working to make it difficult for hotels to quietly encourage guests to forgo daily housekeeping.
The U.S. hotel industry has rebounded from the pandemic despite average occupancy rates remaining below 2019 levels, largely due to higher room rates and record guest spending per room. Average revenue per available room, a key metric, is expected to hit a record $101.84 in 2024, according to the hotel association.
David Sherwyn, director of Cornell University’s Center for Innovative Hospitality Labor and Employment Relations, said UNITE HERE is a strong union but must fight hard for daily room cleaning because hotels view service reductions as part of a long-term budget and staffing strategy.
“Hotels say the guests don’t want it, I can’t find the people and it’s a huge expense,” Sherwyn said. “It’s a battle.”
Domestic workers are angry about what they see as measures designed to make them work more, while they have to deal with irregular hours and low wages. While unionized cleaners tend to earn higher wages, these vary considerably from city to city.
Chandra Anderson, 53, makes $16.20 an hour as a housekeeper at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore Inner Harbor, where workers have not yet voted to strike. She hopes to get a contract that will raise her hourly wage to $20, but she says the company made a counteroffer that “felt like a slap in the face.”
Anderson, who has been the sole breadwinner in her household since her husband went on dialysis, said they had to move to a smaller home a year ago, partly because she couldn’t work enough hours. Things have improved since the hotel reinstated daily room cleaning earlier this year, but she still struggles to afford basics like groceries.
Tracy Lingo, president of UNITE HERE Local 7, said Baltimore members are seeking pensions for the first time, but the biggest priority is getting hourly wages in line with other cities.
“That’s how far behind we are,” Lingo said.
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Associated Press writer Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this report.
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