Josiah Mackenzie

🛡 Gwen Mills, president of Unite Here, a labor union with approximately 275,000 members in the US and Canada, discusses the ongoing hotel worker strikes for improved wages, workloads, and staffing, which were cut during the COVID era. Unionized workers are striking in cities with high living costs, such as San Francisco, Seattle, Honolulu, Boston, and Baltimore. The hospitality industry has recovered from the pandemic, with hotel owners making record profits, yet workers' wages have not kept pace. Mills emphasizes the need for respect and asserts that one job should be enough to live on. The strikes aim to address the gap between soaring room rates, which hit record highs with $100 billion in gross operating profits in 2022, and the quality of service and labor treatment. The conversation touches on the challenges faced by housekeepers, bellmen affected by operational changes, and the broader economic factors influencing wage demands. Unions are calling for re-investment in the workforce to maintain high hospitality standards amidst changing hotel ownership dynamics, where detached investors focus on bottom-line profits.