Unite Here Local 2 brings hotel-worker strike, staffing and health-care demands to supervisors in committee of the whole hearing

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors convened as a committee of the whole on Oct. 8 for a public hearing on the state of the hotel industry in the city, focusing on working conditions for hotel workers and the status of the local economy. Union leaders and dozens of Unite Here Local 2 members testified about staffing cuts, heavier workloads, and proposals from major hotel companies that would reduce or replace union-sponsored health coverage.

Unite Here Local 2 negotiator Anand Singh told the board the industry remains “one of the bedrocks of San Francisco’s economy” and said local hotel workers typically earn about $53,000 a year but depend on union-sponsored health care and retirement benefits. “Hotel employees take by far the first and the biggest hit when business drops in the hotels,” Singh said, noting that “98 percent” of Local 2 members were laid off during the COVID shutdown and were kept on health coverage by their union health fund.

Union president Lizzie Tapia said the union had authorized strikes at large hotels and that 1,500 workers at three downtown properties were on strike at the time of the hearing.…