SAN FRANCISCO — Fifteen spirited pickets from UNITE HERE Local 2 chanted and banged on pots Aug. 16 outside Hotel Spero here, concluding a five-day strike. The workers have been without a contract for four years.
In March the hotel management, without negotiating with the union, arbitrarily cut paid-time-off days from 15 a year to six. And workers discovered they had lost all the PTO of over 40 hours that they had accrued.
Spero is a relatively small 236-room boutique hotel, with worse wages and conditions than larger nearby hotels, like the Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Marriott Marquis and Grand Hyatt. Workers at those hotels carried out a hard-fought 93-day strike in 2024 and succeeded in keeping their medical benefits and raising wages to over $30 an hour.
“Workers at the Spero are paid $21 an hour,” José Lara, a Local 2 member from the Hotel G a few blocks up the street, told the Militant on the Spero picket line. “You can hardly afford to live in the Bay Area on those wages.”
“Family-owned corporations are a thing of the past,” he added. “All the hotels are owned by hedge funds. They just squeeze workers by taking away a little more each time.
“We need more solidarity here,” Lara said. “Other hotels are watching. This is a challenge and we don’t want to lose. Next time they’ll try to take away our medical benefits.”