Seattle: After 85-day strike, hotel workers win victory
Seattle
UNITE HERE Local 8 union members bombarded the Embassy Suites by Hilton with a militant strike and picketline for 85 days in Seattle. They outlasted Hilton, as this hotel monopoly caved with an advance contract on Sept. 10.
Hilton brags it operates under 28 brands, such as Embassy Suites, Doubletree and Waldorf-Astoria. They have 1.4 million hotel rooms on 940 properties in 144 countries and territories. That’s capitalist domination and worldwide imperialism!
The Hilton/Embassy Suites in Seattle sits right in front of the Lumen Field, which hosted six World Cup soccer matches and is the site of big concerts and Seattle Seahawks football games. Yet the hotel workers are greatly overworked and the bosses had the audacity to initially offer the workers a wage increase of just 40 cents an hour!
The specific gains of the new contract are preliminary and more will be released in a few days.
The hotel workers demanded protection for migrant workers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids; initially management wouldn’t even agree to notify workers if ICE was on the premises. Union members have won improved rights for immigrant workers and an agreement on year-round health care coverage. Until this contract, many workers had been denied healthcare coverage when their hours were cut during the winter months. The 117 workers at the hotel get additional workload limits to address staffing shortages. Starting pay for union housekeepers will rise to $31.03 an hour!
“This contract includes tremendous wins on wages, healthcare, workload and immigrant rights,” said Stefan Moritz, the union’s secretary treasurer. (Seattle Times, Sept. 11)
UNITE HERE members kept up a high-volume picket line every day of the strike with bullhorns, drums and other noise makers. They chanted to the well-heeled clients of the luxury hotel, “If we don’t get no contract, you don’t get no sleep!”
Members of Workers World Party and other union solidarity activists joined the picket line.
The UNITE HERE victory will be an impetus for upping the fightback and organization of workers, especially low-paid workers, in Seattle and elsewhere.
