Seattle, WA – On Saturday, August 15, dozens gathered outside Embassy Suites Hotel to picket in support of hotel workers with UNITE HERE Local 8. The workers have been negotiating their contract for six months and have been on strike for 59 days.

The strike began on June 12 after Embassy Suites repeatedly failed to meet workers' demands, which included year-round healthcare, higher wage increases and protection from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The organizers of the picket said that negotiations with the company have been difficult and unproductive.

“Unfortunately, the hotel did not engage in good faith negotiations with the staff,” said Gabe Rubliovschi, a hotel worker at Embassy Suites and organizer with Unite Here Local 8, “12 days into the strike, they came to the table with the exact same offer of a 40-cent increase over the next six months.”

Many UNITE HERE hotel workers across the country went on strike in 2024 and won between $9 and $10 raises over a contract period of four years. The Embassy Suites workers’ wage demands are in line with other unionized hotels in the area.

Hayden Eyerly, a front desk agent with Embassy Suites, confirmed the story, saying that the company, “called us back to the negotiation table on day 12, and we were expecting a new offer of some sort. But they were assuming we’d have a new offer ready, when our response to their previous offer was to go on strike! So, it was a big waste of time, but it made it a whole lot easier to come back out here and yell at them.”

“As someone who started working here before the pandemic, we’ve seen staffing levels cut in half from what they used to be,” said Jus Adsuara, a Local 8 Vice President and hotel worker. “I’m doing twice as much work compared to before the pandemic, but my wage definitely hasn’t doubled.”

Staffing at hotels nationwide has not returned to its pre-pandemic levels. Additionally, Seattle’s hospitality industry is reeling from decreases in Canadian travelers, some of which have been attributed to Trump’s oppressive immigration policies.

Adsuara further explained, “We are really concerned about the presence of ICE in our city, and we want the right to be notified and the right to stay home if ICE is near the building.”

One-third of hotel workers nationally are immigrants; about 3 million immigrants work in hospitality. Hotel workers in Minneapolis have won protections from ICE, which Embassy Suites workers look to as an example.

As cries of “If we don’t get no contract, you won’t get no sleep” echoed throughout the picket, Jus had one more message for management: “We’ll be out here as long as it takes. We’ve said that from the very beginning, and we really mean it.”

#SeattleWA #WA #Labor #Strike #UniteHereLocal8 #HotelWorkers

Minneapolis, MN – Hundreds of hotel workers, members of HERE, marched in Minneapolis on May 1 to celebrate International Workers’ Day and demand a union contract that provides an adequate income where “one job is enough.” The hotel workers previous contract expired on May Day.

#MinneapolisMN #OppressedNationalities #MayDay #PeoplesStruggles #Socialism #HotelWorkers #HERE

The Boston workers are members of UNITE HERE Local 26, which has led a series of strikes and near strikes in university dining operations over the last several years, most notably at Harvard University. The Marriott workers have been in negotiations with the company for a new contract since spring but remain far apart on a number of key issues, including retirement and access to health insurance benefits. The union has brought its demands together under the slogan “One Job Should Be Enough.” According to Brooke Melanson, a bartender at the Westin Waterfront, the pay from one job is not enough to survive in the expensive Boston metropolitan area. “I am striking because I have to work three jobs to try and cover all my family’s expenses,” said Melanson. “Just like any parent, I want time with my children to see them grow up.”

On October 4, Marriott workers in San Francisco and San Jose joined the strike. The hotels out on strike include the Marriott Marquis, Marriott Union Square, the Palace Hotel, the St. Regis, the W, and the Westin St. Francis. Approximately 2500 workers are on strike across these hotels, bringing the total of number of Marriott strikers to over 4000. Anand Singh, president of San Francisco’s UNITE HERE Local 2, told a group of reporters that his union’s message to the Marriott corporation is that the union is “deadly serious about what we say.” Singh went on to say, “Our demands are not hollow demands and we will do whatever it takes.”

The strikes in Boston and California follow the citywide hotel strike in Chicago which began in early September. That strike, which originally involved 26 hotels, continues in four hotels at the time of writing. The Chicago strike did not specifically target the Marriott corporation, though several Marriott hotels which have now settled with UNITE HERE Local 1 were involved. UNITE HERE locals in several other major cities continue to negotiate with Marriott. Strike votes have been taken in Seattle, Detroit, Oakland and Hawaii. Workers in these cities could join the strike at any time.

#BostonMA #Boston #PeoplesStruggles #Strikes #HotelWorkers #Marriott