Workers at six Chicago hotels walked off the job Friday as the city heads into marathon weekend, said the workers’ union, Unite Here Local 1.
Unite Here represents hotel staff such as room attendants, dishwashers, front desk agents, servers and more at hotels throughout the city. Contracts at dozens of hotels covering around 7,000 workers expired as of Aug. 31, the union has said, and hotel workers voted to authorize strikes last month.
As of Friday, workers at the following hotels were on strike, the union said: Millennium Hotel Knickerbocker Chicago, Palmer House, Sheraton Grand Chicago Riverwalk, Waldorf Astoria Chicago, The Westin Chicago River North and The Westin Michigan Avenue Chicago.
“As Chicago welcomes marathon runners and visitors from around the world, hotel workers are being pushed to the breaking point while greedy hotel honchos cash in,” the union’s president, Karen Kent, said in a statement, adding that “the workers who make this industry run are struggling to pay rent and feed their families.”
The union’s contracts with different employers are bargained separately. Unite Here said it could call strikes at additional hotels at any time, and said contracts had not been settled with any employers.
After workers first voted to strike and before Friday’s strike was announced, the Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association said the group was “deeply concerned about the negative impact a work stoppage will have on employees, visitors, hotels, and the city as a whole” and added that hotels have “robust contingency plans” in place.
The last major hotel strike in Chicago occurred in 2018, when workers walked out at more than two dozen hotels.
This is a developing story.