Buttons, lanyards and signs printed with “MAKE THEM PAY!” covered tables and filled bins in a downtown Boston building on Thursday morning as thousands of the city’s hotel workers prepared to go on strike this weekend.
The employees’ union, UNITE HERE Local 26, represents workers from several Boston hotels, including the Hilton Boston Park Plaza, the Hilton Boston Logan Airport and the Fairmont Copley Plaza.
The union announced Monday that over 4,000 workers would officially go on strike — a historic movement — from 35 hotels across the city at the stroke of midnight on Sept. 1 if the contract proposed in April was not signed after months of unsuccessful negotiations.
They are asking for higher wages, better staffing and workloads with the reversal of COVID-era cuts made to staff and guest services that burden current employees. The Hilton, Marriott, Omni and Fairmont Copley Plaza hotels did not respond to MassLive’s requests for comment.
Currently, 50-year-old Alfredo Amado works up to 80 hours a week as a utility steward at the Fairmont Copley Plaza to make ends meet for his wife and four children. He makes just over $28 an hour.
“I love my job, I love working the hotel, but I don’t do all these hours because I love to do it,” Amado told MassLive. He sat at a table in the strike prep workspace Thursday with a pin on his chest.
Alfredo Amado, 50, a hotel worker in Boston. (Irene Rotondo/MassLive)Irene Rotondo
“I have to do it — even if I do all these hours, I’m still sometimes struggling with my bills. It’s very hard for me to save money,” he said.
Amado has been with the hotel for 26 years. He recalls when wages increased to $21 an hour over a decade ago, he was proud to tell his friends and could afford a nice home and car. Now, he’s “ashamed” and “things are different.”
“Hotel workers aren’t getting paid as well as we used to be … I think our fight, our demand, is decent and we deserve better. I know I’ll probably be struggling with pay for two or three weeks now [with the strike], but I am looking for a future,” he said.
Buckets and signs for the pending Labor Day weekend strike. (Irene Rotondo/MassLive)Irene Rotondo
Similar to Amado, Susana Coelho has spent 21 years of her life working at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport. She makes $28.23 an hour as a PBX operator who handles the main hotel phones, dispatches drivers and has other administrative duties.
For Coelho, the strike is an emotional subject and “heartbreaking,” especially after her years of devotion, she said. She’s frustrated the hotels have not been responsive and doesn’t feel heard.
“We care so much about the guests and the fact that these companies don’t care about us … they’re not cooperating with us, it shows by these negotiations that they don’t care. I don’t want to do this, but I don’t have a choice. To them, I’m not Susie Coelho,” she said and recited her Hilton number.
Susana Coelho, 39, a hotel worker in Boston. (Irene Rotondo/MassLive)Irene Rotondo
“I’m just a number … It just breaks my heart that I’m replaceable,” she said.
The Logan Hilton is also much more than just an employer to Coelho — “It’s where I grew up,” she said. She explained her mom was a housekeeper there for 31 years after immigrating from the Azores.
Coelho then got her job there “at 18 years old with a baby in my arms” and said at the time, the Hilton was a “great” place to work that let her take care of her family.
Now, the East Boston mother is putting her 21-year-old daughter through college and said she doesn’t want to be the reason she can’t go.
“She’s the first in the family to go to college, and we’re so happy,” Coelho said, tears rolling down her face as she sat amongst the hundreds of Local 26 signs and picket duty shift signup sheets.
“I don’t want to take that away from her. And if we don’t get this raise, I don’t think I can afford it … I don’t want to fail her,” she said.
If the contract isn’t signed, this hotel worker strike will be the largest participation UNITE HERE Local 26 has ever held. Both UNITE HERE and the local union have successful track records with past strikes, including record contracts awarded after rolling strikes at Los Angeles hotels and a 47-day strike at Detroit casinos.
Papers for the pending strike on Labor Day weekend. Photo by Irene RotondoIrene Rotondo
UNITE HERE Local 26 has held several successful strikes in Massachusetts, such as the 22-day strike at Harvard in 2016, a 46-day strike at Marriott hotels in 2018 and a 79-day strike at the Battery Wharf hotel in 2019.
A strike was narrowly averted last June at the Encore Boston Harbor in Everett after casino workers voted to authorize the movement and a tentative agreement was reached less than two days before the deadline.
“The clock is ticking and the ball is in their court. They are the only ones that can change this. Tick, tock,” Coehlo said.
