San Jose Spotlight
San Jose hotel guests looked on as hundreds of hospitality workers marched and picketed major hotel chains across downtown Tuesday -- calling for higher wages, benefits and more staffing after their collective bargaining agreement recently expired.
It's been four years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and many hotels have maintained reduced staffing levels, said Unite Here Local 19 research analyst Dyana Huaraz. Hotel employees are still showing up to work every day, she said, but behind the scenes union organizers are gathering proposals for what workers want to see in the next contract. Collective bargaining agreements expired in June, leaving about 650 employees who work across five downtown hotels without a contract.
"We're marching for a fair contract," Huaraz told San Jose Spotlight. "Inflation is rising, plus the Silicon Valley is so expensive to live in, so workers just want better wages, better health care and a better pension."
Many of their union members are reaching retirement age and growing more stressed under their existing workplace conditions, which are requiring them to do extra work due to the cutback in staffing.
"They're having us work more than one job and cover for the workers they don't have. It's exhausting, we barely have any energy once we get back to our families," hotel worker Jorge Zamudio told San Jose Spotlight in Spanish. "We deserve more respect than that."
As one of the hospitality workers who tends to conference rooms and makes sure clients have the food and service they need, Zamudio said he and his co-workers are integral to the guest experience -- and their work conditions should reflect that.
"I feel really satisfied in my job knowing clients are happy when they're here, they thank us on the way out and they love the job we do," he said.
Hotel workers marching in San Jose join about 40,000 hospitality workers in more than 20 cities across North America who also face contract negotiations. Contract negotiations include hotel giants such as Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt, with San Jose locations.
A Hilton spokesperson confirmed several hotels across San Jose are engaged in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement with Unite Here Local 19.
"Our hotels maintain a cooperative and productive relationship with Unite Here Local 19, and we remain committed to negotiating in good faith to reach a fair and reasonable agreement that is beneficial to both our valued team members and to our hotels," the Hilton spokesperson told San Jose Spotlight.
While San Jose's hotel industry was hit especially hard during the start of the pandemic, Team San Jose spokesperson Frances Wong said hotel demand is now at 95% of pre-pandemic levels.
"Weekend travel has almost entirely recovered to pre-pandemic demand and revenue. However, weekday travel, especially in downtown, is still recovering due to a lag in transient business travel," she told San Jose Spotlight.
San Jose also tops hotel demand levels across the Bay Area and is the leading destination in California, Wong said, and they are seeing rapid improvements year after year.
"A lot of these hotels are operating with service cuts that were proposed during the beginning of COVID-19 -- so those are no longer applicable," Huaraz said.
According to the Joint Venture 2024 Silicon Valley Index, while hotel development declined from the highest-recorded year in 2019, 2021 and 2022 saw the second and third highest number of new hotel rooms in Santa Clara County.
"In mid-2023, there were 115 hotels (with nearly 18,000 rooms) throughout Santa Clara and San Mateo counties in various stages of planning; while not all of these projects will necessarily be built, the total represents almost two times the amount developed over the past 19 years combined," the index stated.
A report from hotel industry data company STR also showed U.S. hotel revenues reached record highs in 2022.
"We're also asking for a better understanding of workers' workload, because a lot of them are performing duties outside of their job classifications," Huaraz said. "Our workers just want a fair contract."
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