PHILADELPHIA — “We won! We won!” chanted UNITE HERE Local 274 members who work at the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown hotel, after Local President Rosslyn Wuchinich announced a tentative deal for some 200 workers at their strike headquarters June 29. They had been on strike for nine days.
“When we said we were fighting for $30 an hour at the beginning of this campaign, a lot of people told us we were asking for the impossible,” Shafeek Anderson, a food and beverage worker and union steward said. “With this victory, we have shown the whole industry that nothing is impossible when the workers stick together.”
Workers unanimously approved the contract, which included the newly established “citywide standard” wages. Pay for non-tipped workers goes up to $30 an hour by 2028. It also includes an increase in the gratuity for tipped workers, expands healthcare coverage for families, increases the company’s contribution toward their pensions, and reduces each housekeeper’s workload from 16 rooms per shift to 15.
The strike won widespread union solidarity. International Transport Workers’ Federation sent a message to Local 274 June 26 saying, “Canada Rouge cabin crew are no longer staying at this hotel. Sending solidarity, and waiting for the notice of a win!”
A number of workers delivering linen and food to the hotel refused to cross the picket line. Construction stopped on the ballroom when members of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades declined to cross. Members of the Association of Flight Attendants-Communications Workers of America, who often stay at the hotel, joined the strikers on their picket line instead.
Unionists from across the city donated food, water, rain ponchos and walked the picket line.
The hotel workers had been without a contract since May 31, 2024. They went on strike for four days last October, the first ever strike at Sheraton Downtown.
On June 24 the strikers rallied at the Warwick Hotel Rittenhouse Square to put the hotel owners there on notice that “you are next!” Workers at the Warwick were set to strike June 26, but the bosses there agreed to settle.
Since the two strikes at the Sheraton Downtown, nine of 10 hotels organized by Local 274 in the Philadelphia area have won the “citywide standard.”
A rally in front of the Sheraton greeted workers as they returned to work June 30.
Abby Tilsner is a member of UNITE HERE Local 274.