San Francisco, California, USA – About 8,000 Marriott International employees have walked out on strike in Hawaii,San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, San Diego, Detroit and Boston.
The employees are members of Unite Here, which has spent months of negotiations with Marriott. The contract expired over July and August. The workers include housekeepers, front desk attendants, restaurant employees, bellhops and anyone else not in a management position.
The employees are asking for increased wages, job security as hotels adopt more technology, and workplace safety.
Paul Angeles, a Filipino-American have worked with Marriott as housekeeper for 11 years joined the strike.
“Marriott ang pinakamayaman at profitable na hotel sa buong mundo, para sa management it’s about dollars, para sa amin, it’s about our lives, our families, our survival”. Angeles said.
Despite record profits and tax gifts from Donald Trump, Marriott gave us insulting economic proposals. They keep whining about how expensive our medical benefits are and continue to ignore our issues regarding workload, job elimination, and technology/automation, according to the Employees statement.
The employees are asking for fair enough wages that they dont have to get a second job to survive as the slogan says “One Job Should Be Enough”. – With reports from Allan Pineda/ Iorbitnews US Bureau Correspondent