Signs at 32BJ SEIU's headquarters in downtown Boston were being prepared for picket lines expected this fall on Aug. 28, 2024. Photo by Alison Kuznitz | State House News Service
If Greater Boston’s hotel owners don’t match their demands by Friday, the unions representing around 4,000 of their workers say they will stage an indefinite, “all-out strike.”
Unite Here Local 26 has already held several short-duration strikes at 12 of the 36 hotels across the metro area involving around 2,500 workers, including a high-profile one over Labor Day weekend that coincided with a nationwide wave of strikes in other cities demanding higher pay and better working conditions for housekeepers, bellhops, dishwashers, front desk agents and others.
The union’s contracts expired Aug. 31 and they say hotel owners haven’t yet offered “a serious and meaningful economic package” during negotiations. Local 26 says workers have seen their real wages go down thanks to inflation and face unsustainable workloads due to cutbacks many hotels made during the pandemic as money-saving measures, but which have been continued even as the Boston hotel sector experienced a dramatic recovery.
“Our demands are very reasonable, and the hotels can afford the raises we’re asking for,” Susana Coelho, a longtime PBX operator at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport Hotel, said in a statement provided by Local 26. “If you work full time, you shouldn’t have to struggle to pay for necessities like groceries and gas. I have a daughter in college, and I want to be able to support her because she’s the first person in our family to get a higher education. Contract negotiations have been dragging on, and if the hotels refuse to pay us what we’re worth, I’m prepared to go on strike until we win the contract we deserve.”
Research by local hotel consultancy CHMWarnick found that Boston’s average daily room rate was up 13 percent over 2019 in the first quarter and occupancy was up 6.2 percent year-over-year, while research by brokerage JLL found that revenue per available room was up 10 percent year-over-year.
“Meanwhile, hotel workers are under scheduled, can’t afford to live where they work, and need to take on additional jobs to pay their bills. The hotel companies must do the right thing – pay workers a livable wage, because one job should be enough,” Unite Here Local 26 President Carlos Aramayo said in a statement.
