UNITE HERE Launches National Campaign with Actions at Marriott Hotels across the U.S., Saying: “One Job Should Be Enough”
New York, NY – Today UNITE HERE, the union of hospitality workers, is launching a national campaign to raise standards in the hotel industry with demonstrations led by thousands of union and non-union Marriott workers across the United States, including San Francisco, Honolulu, Boston, San Diego, Seattle, Philadelphia and San Jose. Carrying the message “One Job Should Be Enough,” Marriott workers are calling on their employer, the largest and most profitable hotel company in the world, to use its leadership in the global hotel industry to create jobs that are enough to live on.
Actions today range from civil disobedience, marches near major Marriott hotels, and large demonstrations picketing Marriott hotels during high traffic guest hours. Workers will be joined by political powerhouses, such as the sitting Mayor of Philadelphia and the Governor of Hawaii. Today’s actions are occuring as 12,000 of the 20,000 Marriott workers UNITE HERE represents are set to have their contracts expire this year.
“Too often workers welcome guests to Marriott hotels and deliver an unforgettable experience to them, just to leave their shift and go to a second job because working full time for Marriott isn’t enough to make ends meet,” says D. Taylor, International President of UNITE HERE. “Today thousands of hotel workers are telling Marriott, the biggest hotel company worldwide, that that one job should be enough.”
“I commute over 100 miles everyday to work at Marriott because I can’t afford to live even remotely near my job or in South Boston, where I was raised,” says Courtney Leonard, a long time cocktail server at the Westin Boston Waterfront. “I’m taking action because every day I welcome Marriott guests to a city I can no longer afford even though I work for the richest hotel company in the world.”
In addition to improving wages, some of the top priorities for Marriott workers to improve in their contract fights are safer working conditions for women, stronger sexual harassment protections, and negotiating technology and innovation language that will keep workers safe without eliminating middle class jobs.
Learn more at onejob.org.
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UNITE HERE represents 270,000 members working in the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry, transportation, and airport industries in the U.S. and Canada.