About 5,000 hotel workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 5 went on a limited three-day strike at 4 a.m. Sunday over the busy Labor Day weekend, which is expected to set traveling records.

Local 5 workers are striking at the Sheraton Kauai Resort and seven Waikiki hotels: the Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort; Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort & Spa; Moana Surfrider — a Westin Resort Spa; The Royal Hawaiian, a Luxury Collection Resort; Sheraton Princess Ka­iulani; Sheraton Waikiki; and Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa.

Cade Watanabe, Local 5 financial secretary-treasurer, said Local 5 workers represented about half of the over 10,000 UNITE HERE workers from several U.S. cities who went on strike Sunday after bargaining reached an impasse.

UNITE HERE said workers walked off the job at 24 hotels and will strike for either two or three days in eight locales: Boston; Greenwich, Conn.; Honolulu; Kauai; San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, Calif.; and Seattle. The union said strikes also have been authorized and could begin at anytime in Baltimore; New Haven, Conn.; Oakland, Calif.; and Providence, R.I. In 2023, UNITE HERE members won record contracts after rolling strikes at Los Angeles hotels and a 47-day strike at Detroit casinos.

This is Local 5’s largest strike since 1990 when union workers from 11 hotels went on a 22-day strike. In 2018 some 2,700 Local 5 workers at five Marriott-managed hotels went on a 51-day strike that ended with the ratification of a contract that gave union members up to $6.13 an hour in pay and benefit increases over four years.

Watanabe said the union kicked off bargaining with Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Kyo-ya during a joint session April 24. He said the union met with Kyo-ya and Marriott on July 29 and with Hilton on Aug. 1 and Hyatt on Aug. 6.

Watanabe said the fight is similar across the country, but more is at stake in Hawaii, where tourism is the mainstay of the economy and also has been criticized for taking more from the community than it gives.

“If the guests are not happy with the service, then what happens? Do they keep coming back, or do they find somewhere else that has as beautiful beaches as we have in Waikiki where they can get the service?” he said. “We know the industry thinks about this as well, but that’s what is at stake — it’s really the future of our industry and whether it’s going to provide for locals.”

Reuters reported that hotel housekeepers in Baltimore are fighting to bring wages up to $20 per hour from their current $16.20. In Boston, where housekeepers make $28 per hour, the union is seeing a $10-per-hour raise by the end of four years, Reuters said.

A fair agreement

Hilton and Hyatt told Reuters that they remain committed to negotiating a fair agreement with the union.

Michael D’Angelo, Hyatt’s head of labor relations for the Americas, said in a statement Sunday that the company was “disappointed that UNITE HERE has chosen to strike while Hyatt remains willing to negotiate.”

D’Angelo said the company had contingency plans in place to mitigate the impact of the strike.

Watanabe said hotels where Hawaii Local 5 members are striking began reaching out Saturday to discuss setting new bargaining dates. So far, he said, proposals are far apart.

“I’ve been asking our costing people to meet with their costing people so we can make sure that we have the same assumptions. But what I can say is that what we put on the table, we are worth every single dime,” he said. “Why shouldn’t workers in our No. 1 industry be making a decent wage? We aren’t talking about the kinds of money that our managers and hotel owners and corporate CEOs make when they are making hundreds of times more than workers.”

Watanabe said some Hawaii hotels are seeking to withhold cleaning for 10% of the rooms per night, which could eliminate shifts for up to 10 workers at a 1,400-room property where housekeepers must earn 14 housekeeping credits.

Local 5 member Lourdes Maquera, a Royal Hawaiian housekeeper for 14 years, said workload is already a huge issue and that it’s harder to clean rooms that have not had daily service.

“If we don’t (clean) like every day and then, let’s say, guests will have their privacy sign for like two to three days, it’s so messy,” Maquera said. “We know and understand that guests come to enjoy their vacation, but then sometimes when they leave, sometimes you get big trash bags and then the bathroom is really hard — you can get mold already.”

She said supply shortages also are a problem, especially when there are not enough fresh towels and linens to keep guests happy.

Todd Yokoyama, who has worked at Hyatt as a valet for a year and a half, said he was on the strike line Sunday “for the best possible contract that we can get. I think secondly, it’s about supporting people that have had their hours cut back significantly. I’ve been lucky enough that my hours have stayed steady, but there are bellmen who have been here for 25 years that are on call.”

Yokoyama said Hyatt also has increased the daily parking fee to $70 a night, which along with the strained workloads has made customers less satisfied and reduced tips.

Representatives from Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott & Kyo-ya hotels did not immediately respond to a request for a comment. However, a spokesperson for the Hawai‘i Hotel Alliance, whose members and partner sponsors own and operate more than 29,000 rooms across the state, said the hotels where Local 5 is striking remain open and have not cut services.

Though the Labor Day weekend was forecast to be high-volume nationwide, the Hawai‘i Hotel Alliance spokesperson said September hotel occupancy in Hawaii is soft.

The Hawai‘i Hotel Alliance spokesperson said the union is seeking about $12 an hour in across-the-board raises over four years and has asked for another 3% increase to benefits. The spokesperson said the union also wants to lessen cleaning workloads at a time when recruitment and retention of housekeepers remain challenging.

“The numbers are more than any of us have ever seen in union negotiations before,” the spokesperson said. “We have a lot to figure out.”

The spokesperson estimated that hourly wages for Local 5 workers range from about $17 an hour for tipped wait staff to about $38 an hour for engineers, and said that housekeepers get about $28 an hour and might make another $6,000 to $7,000 in gratuities.

Local 5 said since 2019 the U.S. hotel industry’s gross operating profit increased by 26.6%, while hotel staffing decreased by 13%. In Hawaii, the union said, the average daily rate of a hotel room increased 33% and the revenue per available room has increased 23% since 2019.