HONOLULU — About 5,000 Unite Here Local 5 hotel workers took a crucial step Thursday toward labor strikes at seven Waikiki hotels.
After a daylong vote inside the Ala Moana Hotel’s Hibiscus Ballroom which ended at 8 p.m., the union by a 94% vote favored a strike.
Local 5 says this action allows its negotiation committee the authority to call a strike anytime at the following properties: the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort; Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort & Spa; Moana Surfrider — a Westin Resort Spa; The Royal Hawaiian, a Luxury Collection Resort; Sheraton Princess Kaiulani; Sheraton Waikiki; and Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa.
The vote follows what Local 5 describes as months of “unsuccessful negotiations” with those major employers.
In advance of a possible walkout, affected workers are calling for the hotel industry to raise wages and reverse staffing cuts in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a dire situation the union says has led to difficult conditions for both hotel workers and guests.
“It’s clear by the results of this strike vote that Hawaii’s hotel workers are ready to do whatever it takes to ensure that tourism works for all of us — not just some of us. We love our jobs and our guests, but enough is enough,” Cade Watanabe, financial secretary treasurer of Local 5, said in a written statement following his union’s vote.
“This community needs our hotel owners and mainland operators to respect our work and pay us enough so that locals can get ahead, not just get by. And we need them to step up and respect our guests enough to address the systemic staffing and workload issues that make it hard for us to provide the quality of service that our guests deserve,” he said.
Among the affected hotels, the Hilton could not be reached for comment about Local 5’s strike authorization vote.
But Michael D’Angelo, head of labor relations-Americas, Hyatt, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser via email, “We are disappointed that Unite Here Local 5 has chosen to take a strike vote while Hyatt remains willing to negotiate.”
“And we remain optimistic that a mutually beneficial agreement can be reached without a strike,” D’Angelo said. “We look forward to continuing to negotiate a fair contract and recognize the contributions of our employees.”
On Tuesday, Hyatt posted its second-quarter 2024 results, which included net income of $359 million.
And according to the company, as of June 30, Hyatt “has realized $1.5 billion of gross proceeds from the net disposition of real estate … and remains committed to realizing $2 billion of gross proceeds from the sale of real estate, net of acquisitions, by the end of 2024 as part of its expanded asset disposition commitment announced in August 2021.”
But according to a recent survey of nearly 4,000 Local 5 workers, 76% of them cannot afford an unexpected bill of $500.
The union says 78% of workers also believe their employers took advantage of the pandemic to cut payroll and make changes not beneficial to workers.
The U.S. hotel industry’s gross operating profit was over 26.6% higher in 2022 than 2019, the union states.
In Hawaii, revenue per available room increased by 23%, and average daily rate of a hotel room increased by 33% in 2023 compared with 2019. Yet hotel staffing per occupied room was down 13% from 2019 to 2022 in the country, the union states.
The union asserts many hotels have kept COVID-19-era service cuts in place including shuttering VIP lounges and reducing and, in many cases, removing food and beverage options such as in-room dining.
Besides Honolulu, 10,000 hotel workers in Baltimore; New Haven, Conn.; Providence, R.I.; San Diego; San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; and Seattle are also expected to hold strike authorization votes in August.
To that end, hotel workers here were not alone in their strike authorization vote Thursday.
On the same day, Boston’s Unite Here Local 26 — representing workers in hotels, food service, casinos and airports — voted on its intent to strike at 35 Boston-area hotels, due to similar concerns over pay and staffing. According to the more than 4,000-member union, 99% of Local 26 favored a strike.
