Hotel unions in SF, Oakland merge as industry emerges from pandemic

Hotel unions in San Francisco and the East Bay have decided to merge for greater bargaining heft as the hospitality industry bounces back from the pandemic.

San Francisco’s Unite Here Local 2 and Oakland’s Unite Here Local 2850 voted to become one Bay Area union led by Local 2 union President Anand Singh, the San Francisco Chronicle
reported. The unions were gearing up for a bargaining showdown with hotels this summer.

Hotels across the U.S. lost an estimated $108 billion in business travel revenue alone during the last two years, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. San Francisco’s hotel occupancy rate hovered at 50 percent early last month, below the 2019 average of 80 percent, according to city data. Hotels saw a spike to 76 percent last month when the Game Developers Conference and the NCAA basketball tournament were in town.

As hotel occupancy rates creep up on both sides of the bay, the union says members who have been called back to work are required to perform the work of multiple people in order to cut costs and boost profits.

About half the hotel workers in San Francisco half have been called back to work after furloughs and layoffs during the pandemic, with 55 percent of the East Bay and North Bay members called back, the union said.

Unite Here’s San Francisco chapter, which also includes San Mateo County, represents 13,000 service workers, of which 9,000 worked in hotels. It voted 84.2 percent to support the merger.

Unite Here’s Oakland chapter, which represents 2,500 workers in the East and North Bay, voted 99 percent in favor of Bay Area solidarity.

Union leaders said the ability to bargain as a larger unit with big hotel chains gives them more clout in getting their members back to work after pandemic job cuts, and to control workloads once they’re back on the job.

Hilton CEO Christopher Nassetta told investors on a call last year the company was looking to create higher margins through “labor efficiencies,” particularly in housekeeping and food and beverage service.

[San Francisco Chronicle] – Dana Bartholomew

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