More than 1,000 protest outside of SF Marriott hotels as strike stretches into second week

More than 1,000 hotel workers and their supporters mobilized in downtown San Francisco early Saturday morning to demand increased job security and higher wages in ongoing contract negotiations with the Marriott Hotel corporation, the world’s largest hotel chain.

Since Oct. 4, over 2,500 employees at San Francisco’s seven Marriott locations joined a national strike that now includes eight cities. Combined with San Francisco, total of 7,700 workers have walked out of their jobs in Boston,Oahu, Maui, San Diego, Oakland, San Jose and Detroit.

UNITE HERE Local 2, the union representing the hotel workers, organized Saturday’s massive rally to pressure the hotel giant to settle in the negotiations that according to the union’s leadership have stalled.

The union is demanding increased protections for the hotel workers as emerging technologies have replaced jobs and decreased workers’ hours, as well as work place safety and higher wages. Marriott employees increasingly report having to work two or three jobs to stay afloat.

The union has been in talks with Marriott since June, and employees have been working without contracts since then.

“Some of the leaders met with Marriott last week — we didn’t see any movement on the key issues,” said union spokesperson Rachel Gumpert. “This is the largest action in all eight strike cities to date — combined with the negative guest experiences happening while our workers are out, we are hopeful that Marriott will be willing to move and get these workers back to work.”


http://www.sfexaminer.com/1000-striking-hotel-workers-protest-outside-sf-marriott-hotels/