Around 250 workers at the Doubletree hotel in San José, Calif., walked off the job early on the morning of June 4, beginning what was planned to be a four-day strike. Ending at midnight on the fourth day, it was the first strike at a Silicon Valley hotel since the region’s hotel industry began a rapid expansion in the 1980s.
The strikers included housekeepers, cooks, dishwashers, bartenders, front desk clerks and others.
The strike came after 11 months of frustrating negotiations between workers and management, and reflects the growing militancy of Silicon Valley hotel workers. Workers are increasingly fed up with the growing inequality where big corporations have made record profits in past years, including large increases since 2009, while workers have seen few if any benefits.
In fact, management of the DoubleTree, which is is part of the Hilton chain, owned by the investment giant Blackstone Group, wants to impose long-term wage freezes and underfund health care, even while the owners make hundreds of millions in profits. Hilton has refused to concede benefits to DoubleTree workers that it has already agreed to in other cities, treating the workers as second-class citizens, according to a union fact sheet.
Blackstone made over $3 billion gross profit during the past 12 months, and has nearly $600 million cash on hand. Already one of the largest owners of hotels worldwide, Blackstone expanded its growing monopoly just last month with its $1.9 billion acquisition of French hotel operator Accor’s Motel 6 and Studio 6 chains. In contrast, a hotel housekeeper at the DoubleTree is paid $12.80 an hour, or around $20,000 per year.
“I dream of sending my four-year-old son to preschool,” said Dolores Dominguez, a banquet server who has worked at the DoubleTree for nine years. “But there’s no way I could do that right now, especially if the hotel keeps squeezing us like this. I’m on strike for my family, so I can give them a good education and keep them healthy.”
The South Bay Labor Council notified hotel management May 23 that strike sanction was granted to UNITE HERE Local 19 against the hotel. The effect of the sanction, as stated in the notification letter, was “to direct our 85 affiliated unions representing over 100,000 workers to support this sanctioned strike. … This includes honoring and joining union picket lines, refusing to purchase or patronize non-union products or services, and providing financial support to striking families.”
Members and activists of numerous unions, community organizations and faith-based groups, including the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism,) joined the picket line in solidarity.
