A more than month-long strike by Westin San Diego Gaslamp workers will deliver a 40 percent pay hike for hotel housekeepers, stronger protections for sexual harassment and a first-time pension.

Details of the new four-year contract were made public Tuesday following the end this week of the last of the hotel walkouts that had targeted Marriott International properties involving 7,700 workers across eight cities in the U.S.

The Unite Here labor union representing the workers had agreed to not divulge terms of the individual contracts until all strikes were settled. The last of those was in San Francisco where 2,500 workers had been on strike for more than 60 days. They are returning to work on Wednesday now that they have approved a new contract.

The San Diego strike, which marked the first hotel walkout in the county since 2000, when workers at the Hotel del Coronado struck for one day, ended in early November


The financial terms of the agreements negotiated in each of the affected cities varies based on their respective economic demographics. In San Diego, hotel housekeepers, who tend to be among the lowest paid workers and represent the largest of more than two dozen different union job classifications at the Westin, had been earning $14.25 an hour, significantly below their peers at other San Diego union hotels.

The Westin’s 162 workers represented by Unite Here had been without a new contract since April of last year

With the new agreement, their pay will jump to $18 an hour next July and will increase a few times more until 2022 when hourly wages will reach $20, said Rick Bates, research analyst for Unite Here Local 30. By comparison, housekeepers at the Hotel del Coronado, also a union property, currently earn $18 an hour, and at the San Diego Hilton Bayfront, the hourly pay is $17.35.

In San Francisco, where the cost of living is considerably higher than San Diego’s, the median hourly wage for hotel housekeepers is currently $23, which will increase by $4 an hour by the end of the four-year contracts for the affected hotels, according to Unite Here.


In addition to housekeepers, the new San Diego contract will mean significant pay raises for all categories of workers, from front office employees to banquet cooks, Bates said. Tipped banquet servers and bartenders, for example, will receive an increase in their gratuity, from 13.5 percent to 15.5 percent.

Throughout the strike, the workers’ mantra had been, “One job should be enough,” a reflection, union organizers said, of the need of many employees to work more than one job to make ends meet.

“I think we were looking for wages that would allow the workers to provide for their families in San Diego, and we weren’t going to stop fighting until we got there, and $20 was the target,” Bates said. “You’re not going to be rich by any means but you’re not going to be in poverty. This is just the starting point.”

A spokeswoman for Marriott International, now the world’s largest hotel chain, had no comment Tuesday on the substance of the new contracts, saying only that “We look forward to welcoming our (San Francisco) associates back at work.”


With its acquisition nearly two years ago of Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Marriott’s portfolio has grown to 1.26 million rooms in more than 6,500 properties in 127 countries and territories, and during the last fiscal year, it recorded profits of $1.3 billion on revenue of nearly $23 billion.

In addition to the pay raises coming to the Westin Gaslamp workers, other economic benefits negotiated on their behalf include:

No increases in health insurance premiums during the four-year contract period. Monthly premiums for the union’s Kaiser health plan, for example, will remain at $50 a month, no matter the size of the household. Workers who prefer to receive their medical care in Mexico will now have access to a SIMNSA plan (Sistemas Medicos Nacionales, S.A. de C.V.). Because it is a lower cost plan, union members will pay no premium.

A first-time pension that will require the employer to contribute 40 cents an hour for each hour worked by the employees. That will rise to 60 cents an hour by the end of the contract. Westin hotel workers already have a 401k that includes an employer contribution but now they will have the choice of a guaranteed pension, Bates explained. If they choose the pension, they can still keep contributing to their 401-k but will no longer get an employer contribution.

Across all the hotels, Unite Here won agreements from Marriott to equip employees who work directly with guests, like housekeepers and room service attendants, with GSP-enabled panic buttons that will let them call for immediate help if they feel unsafe.

In addition, there is a provision that requires guests to be removed mid-visit and banned from the hotel for three years if they’re believed to have been sexually harassing an employee, Bates said.


Marriott has been working on the panic button technology for some time and plans to roll out the initiative to all its more than 5,000 managed and franchised properties in the U.S. and Canada, said spokesman Brendan McManus.

“The associate alert technology rollout is projected to continue through 2020 as we and our franchise partners fine-tune and tailor installations at individual sites ranging from highrise city properties to sprawling resorts to suburban hotels,” he said.

Responding to union concerns about increasing automation that could potentially jeopardize hotel jobs, Marriott also agreed to not make such decisions without first engaging in talks with the union, Unite Here said.


Business

lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-2251


Twitter: @loriweisberg