More than 1,800 hotel workers went on an open-ended strike Tuesday at the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort, and their union, UNITE HERE Local 5, says they will not return to work until they have a new contract. Local housekeepers, front-desk agents, restaurant staff, maintenance workers and other Hilton Hawaiian Village workers are joining some 4,000 hotel workers across the U.S.
who are now on open-ended strikes at Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott hotels in San Diego and San Francisco. But the big question locally is, Are Local 5 workers going to strike like it’s 2018? That was the year that some 2,700 Local 5 workers at five Marriott-managed hotels went on a 51-day strike that ended with the ratification of a contract that gave union members up to $6.13 an hour in pay and benefit increases over four years.
Local 5’s request this time around is for more than $12 an hour in pay and benefit increases over four years. Heading into this strike, hotel management and owners reportedly had met the union about halfway — so those bargaining still have much ground to cover. This strike also could incorporate elements of Local 5’s last hotel strike, which began the Sunday before the busy Labor Day holiday and ended Sept.
4. That action was limited to just three days, but it was Local 5’s largest strike since 1990, when union workers from 11 hotels went on a 22-day strike. Some 10,000 UNITE HERE workers across the U.
S. participated in the Sept. 2-4 strike, including 5,00.
