Several hundred striking Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott hotel workers and supporters marched noisily through the cold, rainy streets of downtown San Francisco on Wednesday toward the luxurious Palace Hotel to press their demands for better pay and working conditions. Wednesday’s demonstration came two months after the start of strikes at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco Union Square, Hilton San Francisco Union Square and Westin St. Francis (a Marriott hotel), labor actions that spread in October to the San Francisco Marriott Union Square and the Palace Hotel (Marriott) at Montgomery and Market streets.
Organizers with the Unite Here Local 2 union representing the workers warned Wednesday that hotel employees could walk off another nine hotels as a result of the “extreme” negotiating positions taken by the hotels’ representatives in contract talks. “The message is, you’re playing with fire and this is only going to get bigger and worse,” said union spokesperson Ted Waechter. About 435 workers at the St.
Regis San Francisco and the W San Francisco hotels were scheduled to vote Thursday on whether to authorize strikes. Seven other hotels, including two in the East Bay and two in Burlingame, had already authorized strikes, meaning they could walk off the job at any point. The striking workers include housekeepers, servers, bartenders, cooks, dishwashers, bellhops and doormen.
They are among more than 10,000 hotel workers who went on strike in 11 cities over Labor Day weeke.