Seattle, WA
Seattle Hotel Workers Are on the Verge of Striking Ahead of the World Cup – The Stranger
Call it labor unrest summer? Unionized journalists across the Northwest at McClatchy Media went on a one-day strike over AI policy, union employees at acclaimed restaurant the Walrus and the Carpenter are willing to strike, and today unionized hotel workers at the Hilton’s Embassy Suites in Pioneer Square are voting to authorize a strike. The union is collecting votes until 6 p.m. this evening.
The contract between management and the 113 unionized Embassy Suites employees expired on May 31. Today, workers—represented by Unite Here Local 8, a hospitality union—are expected to vote to authorize a work stoppage, and give leadership the ability to call a strike at any time. Seattle’s World Cup games kick off at Lumen Field in less than two weeks, steps away from Embassy Suites.
The main issues at play are health insurance, pay—Hilton’s current offer amounts to a less than $1 per hour raise on average over the next five years—and a proposal, so far rejected by Hilton, that management tell employees when ICE or DHS is on the property.
“As a brown woman, I know ICE does not care whether you are a US citizen,” Dom Kaur, a front desk agent, said in a press release. “What they are doing goes against my core moral beliefs. My dad needed asylum and as a lawyer now helps others. It is wrong for our bosses to sit there and say they cannot do anything about it.”
ICE concerns are heightened because the agency may be on hand at Lumen during the World Cup. A majority of the staff are people of color or immigrants, says Victoria Davidson, a public area attendant at Embassy Suites. “ICE will have a presence because of FIFA, and it’s not OK for people to be afraid to come to work,” Davidson says.
Hilton did not respond before press time. An automatic email from the US press office said that it was “currently closed” on Friday afternoon.
If the union strikes, Davidson anticipates that managers would initially do the jobs of unionized workers, and then Hilton would turn to temp staffing agencies to recruit scabs. Even though the hotel would remain open, the union believes that a strike during the World Cup would cause enough problems for hotel operations that workers have a lot of leverage at this moment.
“This is not going to happen again for at least 25 to 30 years,” Davidson says of the World Cup matches, “and we’re the only hotel that’s right here.”