CHICAGO — Hundreds of hotel workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 1, marched here Sept. 1 to press demands for a substantial wage raise, improved benefits and safer workloads, and to prepare for possible strike action. After most of their contracts expired at midnight, some 7,000 workers at more than 40 unionized hotels are working without a contract.
A number of union members “have had to take out payday loans. They’ve been struggling with food and housing insecurity,” Local 1 President Karen Kent told the rally. “We’re preparing to do whatever it takes to win.”
“If we don’t stand up, they’ll take everything from us, our healthcare and pensions,” Lucy Zapata, who’s worked staffing banquets for 28 years, said.
Zapata and many other marchers had been through the last major hotel strike in Chicago in 2018. “We started by striking and picketing one hotel at a time,” she said. “Then we began marching from one hotel to another, all together. That was much stronger.”
“We need raises across the board, and we need to phase out the tipped positions,” said Roger Moore, who works as a doorman at The Wade hotel. “People don’t carry cash anymore, so the tips have declined.” Workers in “tipped” jobs are often paid about $10 per hour less than the base rate for other jobs.
Paula Fernández, a housekeeper at a DoubleTree hotel here, said the workload was just too much. She has to clean 16 rooms per shift, and “that’s a lot!” she said. “The union is very important. During the pandemic, the company looked for excuses to fire a lot of people. The union defended them.”