Wandy Galván has cleaned rooms at the Westin St. Francis for nearly a decade, picking up after guests at one of San Francisco’s most storied hotels. But for the past two months, the mother of three leaves her apartment in the Tenderloin to join her union’s picket line instead – waving a sign in front of her workplace that reads: “One job should be enough.”
“We clean the rooms, that’s our job,” said Galván, who says her employer wants to add extra tasks to her workload without additional pay. “It’s enough to clean 14 rooms a day. Then they tell us, ‘You have to do laundry. You have to clean the hallway. You need to help carry luggage.’ … It’s not fair.”
Galván is one of 2,500 UNITE HERE Local 2 hotel workers striking across six major hotels owned by Hilton, Marriott, and Hyatt. The workers are fighting to keep their health insurance and retirement plans, protect their workloads and secure raises tied to hotel profits. They say the hotel companies are trying to phase out their current protections and benefits in the new contract.
Now that the strike reached its two-month mark, their movement is escalating.
On Nov. 20, hundreds of striking hotel workers gathered at Yerba Buena Gardens Wednesday afternoon to mark the 60th day of the strike. Carrying banners and signs reading “Bet on SF,” they marched through downtown in the pouring rain, stopping in front of the Palace Hotel for a rally.
“Today, we have one message for the bosses,” said Lizzy Tapia, president of Unite Here Local 2, through a plastic-covered megaphone during the rally. “This is your last chance. Do what’s in the best interest of your workers and this city.”
Four days later, 500 workers at the Marriott Marquis walked out of the job to join the strike. At any moment, 500 other workers who voted on Nov. 21 to authorize strikes at the W and the St. Regis could also walk out, turning the prolonged strike into one of the largest hotel worker strikes San Francisco has seen in decades.
Working together to set a fair standard
After their labor contracts expired in August and following a series of failed negotiations, hotel workers went on strike on Labor Day, joining more than 10,000 Local 2 hotel employees in a nationwide walkout.
The current strike began on Sept. 22. With no agreement in sight, it might extend over the holiday season and into the new year, organizers say. Galván said workers plan to stay outside until hotels call the union with a better proposal.
Although the striking workers are employed by different hotel companies, they say they’ve chosen to strike together to set the tone for all hotel workers in the city.
“If we set a standard with one hotel company, we want all the other hotel companies to sign on to the same contract,” said Unite Here! spokesperson Ted Waechter. “That way, there’s no group of workers that are treated like second class citizens.”
Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt are negotiating as a bloc, and union leaders hope a settlement with these chains will set a precedent for other companies in San Francisco.
Fighting to preserve their protections
For many workers, the strike isn’t about raising wages or expanding benefits — it’s about keeping them.
Workers told El Tecolote that their employers’ proposals would erode healthcare benefits, retirement contributions, and manageable workloads — benefits that have long made these union jobs a source of stability for working-class communities.
“I’m doing the job that was previously done by two people, and they want to pay me less for it,” said Valeska Cruz, a room service worker at the Westin St. Francis. “This is a just cause — not only just for me, but for people who’ve spent their whole lives working here.”
Tania Barraza, a 15-year steward at the Hilton Union Square, said that losing these benefits would make surviving in the Bay Area nearly impossible for her and her family.
“Healthcare here in California is unattainable without these plans,” Barraza said. “We’d need to use all our salary just to cover it. It’s not sustainable.”
A strike that empowers workers — despite toll
To strike, workers have forgone their wages. The union provides $500 per month from its strike fund, but for families like Galván’s, where both she and her husband are on strike, it hasn’t been enough to cover rent. To make it work, Galván struck a temporary deal with her landlord.
“I’ve been spit at by passersby, they’ve thrown me the finger, we’re cold and exposed to anything,” Galván said. “… But I have faith we’re going to win this.”
Despite the hardships, Barraza says the strike feels empowering. “It’s exhausting, but we’re energized because we’re fighting for our rights,” she said.
Some workers have taken more direct action, including a sit-in last month on Union Square’s cable car tracks, which resulted in 85 arrests.
Forget the “doom loop”: Workers bet on San Francisco’s recovery
San Francisco is the only city where hotel workers are still on strike since the nationwide walkouts in September.
The city’s slow recovery from the pandemic, union leaders say, is a sticking point in negotiations. They say hotel operators have argued that sluggish tourism makes cost-cutting necessary. To address this concern, the union proposed tying wage increases to hotel profits, provided hotels agree to protect workloads and maintain benefits.
“It was our way of saying we are confident in San Francisco’s recovery,” Waechter said. “We know business is going to come back because they said the same thing to us in 2008 after the recession or in 2001 after 9/11, or in the 90s after the big earthquake in ‘89.”
The three hotel companies involved in negotiations did not respond to El Tecolote’s requests for comment at the time of publication. In late October, they told KQED they were committed to negotiating fair agreements and minimizing strike-related disruptions for their guests.
At the rally, Local 2 President Tapia urged hotels to stop “driving the doom loop.” She pointed to several groups that pledged to bring conferences to the city starting in 2025 if strikes are settled in time, which could bring in 25,000 room nights to hotels in San Francisco. The union also said they did not strike during Salesforce’s Dreamforce Conference in mid-September to honor the company’s commitment to invest in the city for the next three years.
“We’re willing to do everything in our power to accelerate this recovery if hotel bosses make the right decision,” Tapia said. ”… As long as it’s a San Francisco that treats its workers with respect.”
Pablo Unzueta contributed to this report. This article was updated to reflect that 500 Marriot Marquis hotel workers walked out Sunday and joined the strike.
