San Francisco luxury hotel employees join worker’s strike

(KRON) – More than 300 hotel workers at San Francisco’s Beaux-Arts Palace Hotel have joined the hotel workers strike, the Unite Here Local 2 union announced on Sunday.

This is the fifth major hotel to join the strike, including Grand Hyatt San Francisco Union Square, Hilton San Francisco Union Square, San Francisco Marriott Union Square and Westin St. Francis. 

The union said almost 2,000 San Francisco hotel workers have joined the strike. The employees include housekeepers, bellhops, cooks, dishwashers, servers, bartenders and other positions.  

Lizzy Tapia, the President of the UNITE HERE Local 2 said, “Hotel workers do tough, physical jobs cleaning rooms, carrying luggage, and cooking and serving food, and we are tired of waiting for affordable health care, good raises, and fair workloads. We’re not backing down from this fight.”

The union members are demanding higher wages, fair staffing and workloads, and the reversal of COVID-era cuts. During the pandemic, the union said hotels cut staffing and suspended guest services that were never restored. This caused hotel workers to lose hours and increase their workload.

Edwin Santos, a cook at Marriott’s Palace Hotel provided his reasoning for joining the strike, “I’m on strike to protect my health care and the other benefits we’ve fought hard for over the years. The cost of living is already high, and we can’t afford to backslide. We’re going to stay strong on the picket line because we refuse to go backwards.”

KRON4 reached out to Beaux-Arts Palace Hotel for comment on the strike and is awaiting comment.