Marriott hotel worker strike: More than 1,500 strike in Boston, demanding better pay from hotel chain as it turns huge profits

Oct. 03--In the first-ever hotel strike in Boston, more than 1,500 unionized hotel workers took to the streets to demand Marriott International provide better pay, job security with health insurance and retirement benefits.

"What we're faced with is representatives of Marriott who seem to be fixated on doing business in the old way, when the industry wasn't in the process of rapid change," said Local 26 President Brian Lang, adding, "The old way just isn't working."

The strike includes workers from across seven different hotels in Boston: Aloft Boston Seaport District, the Element Boston Seaport District, the Ritz-Carlton Boston, the Sheraton Boston, the W Hotel Boston, the Westin Boston Waterfront and the Westin Copley Place. The hotels remain open and staffed during the strike, Marriott spokespeople said.

Thousands of Marriott hotel workers in other major U.S. cities, like Detroit, Seattle, San Francisco and elsewhere, have voted to authorize similar strikes.

Local 26 President Lang said that for many workers, there is a lack of stable job security, which subsequently leads the absence of health insurance and proper retirement benefits.

He and striking hotel workers pointed directly to the "Make a Green Choice" program Marriott offers customers as an initiative that has hurt housekeeping staff.

The program, marketed as a way for customers to reduce their "environmental footprint," allows guests to forego housekeeping for up to three days in exchange for hotel reward points or food and beverage vouchers.

"We help them to get all this money," says Sheraton Hotel housekeeper Carlos Da Vejga while picketing with dozens of workers in front of the Sheraton Hotel on Dalton Street.

"But employees are laid off one month, two month, three months at a time," he added.

Da Vejga said that housekeepers are often without work but kept "on-call" to come in. According to union spokespeople, if workers do not work at least 240 hours in a three-month period, they no longer qualify for health insurance.

Lang said the union is asking for Marriott to adjust certain practices such as the "Green Choice" program, or at minimum, to modify its contracts in some other "creative way" that offers hotel employees stable work and pay.

"To live in Boston, it's not easy. it's too expensive for rent," Da Vejga said. After living in Dorchester for 25 years, he hopes he does not have to leave.

"We're going to be in the streets until they sign the contract. No matter how long it's going to take," Da Vejga added.

Marriott spokespeople have said their last contract included the largest increases to date. The company responded to the strikes and workers' complaints with a statement:

"We are disappointed that Unite Here has chosen to resort to a strike at this time. Marriott's current economic proposal matches the economic terms in the parties' last contract, which included the largest increases in the parties' bargaining history. We have not proposed any changes to our associates' health, welfare or retirement benefits," Marriott International spokespeople said in an e-mail.

While the strike is about more than a simple wage increase, according to Lang, a demand for higher pay is one part of the equation in negotiations. Housekeepers currently make $21.43 per hour, Lang said.

He would not confirm what workers want in a new contract, but worker Da Vejga -- who said he has been involved in negotiations since last March -- stated housekeepers are asking for an hourly raise of more than $1.50 each year over the next four years.

For others, like 71-year-old Mei Leung, of North Quincy, the strike is about finding a way to retire in peace.

"Our job is not easy. When I finish, my whole body feels pain," Leung said at a picketing line on Wednesday. She said she has worked with Marriott for nearly 31 years and wants to retire.

Like Da Vejga, Leung noted that rising costs for simple things, like her monthly water bill, mean she must keep working: "Everything is going up," she said.

In 2012, Local 26 hotel workers negotiated a defined-benefit pension plan, union leader Lang said. But for older workers, like Leung, who was in her mid-60s at the time those plans were negotiated, there has been little monetary accumulation since then. Lang said many older workers need enough money to pay for Medicare costs.

"We need enough money so people who need to retire now can retire without going into poverty, and afford to pay for the medicare supplements," Lang said.

Workers who set up conventions and events in Boston and make up Local 25 were also present at the picket lines on Wednesday. Kevin McNiff said he pulled his men off of jobs at the Sheraton and the Weston to show solidarity with the hotel workers on strike.

"These poor people, the corporate greed. They're not getting paid what they deserve," McNiff said. "We're here to help them fight."

A central point of striking workers' complaints stem from the fact that Marriott International is turning big profits.

In the first quarter of 2018, for instance, the company reported a net income of $398 million, or a 7 percent increase from the previous year. In the second quarter of 2018, the hospitality company reported a 25 percent increase in net income year over year, or $610 million total.

Lang accused Marriott International's owners as prioritizing the real estate value of their various properties over the lives of individual workers.

"The human aspect of it, the workers, the people who provide the services in these largely concrete and glass structures that we call hotels...is the last consideration when it comes to the owners," Lang told MassLive.

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