Read our editorial “The Significance of Strikes” here.
On October 18, hundreds of workers with UNITE HERE Local 1 went on strike at the Hyatt Regency Chicago and Hilton Chicago as part of a staggered strike after more than 7,000 hotel workers authorized a strike last month following failed contract negotiations with Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt hotels.
Workers are demanding better wages, healthcare benefits, better pensions, civil rights protections and safer workloads.
A worker on the picket line told The Worker about the dangerous conditions: “It’s very hard work. When people retire or leave, [managers] make one do the work of two people, five people at one time. One time I was very busy and I burned my hand. The chef said to keep working. My coworker told me to go to the hospital and I did.”
She and her husband described how management has been trying to sow divisions among workers, targeting those in the most precarious position to turn them against the union through promises of bribes and misinformation.
The 7,000 hotel workers represented by Local 1 work across 48 hotels in Chicago. At 44 of those hotels, workers’ contracts expired at the end of August. Two of the hotels have no contract, and the other two have a contract set to expire in December.
The strikes have been staggered so far, with workers at a handful of hotels striking at a time for a few days, mitigating the impact a citywide, open-ended strike would have.
The first strike took place from October 9 to 13, coinciding with the surge in hotel occupancy during the Chicago Marathon. The strike included workers at the Sheraton Grand Riverwalk, Waldorf Astoria, Palmer House, The Westin Chicago River North, The Westin Chicago Michigan Avenue, and Millennium Hotel Knickerbocker Chicago.
Workers say they are prepared to walk out again if necessary. “[The strike is] about better wages, healthcare, less of a workload, especially for housekeepers,” a doorman who participated in the earlier strike told The Worker. “That’s ultimately what it’s about, coming back to the table, negotiating, and if it doesn’t work out, we’ll go on strike again.”
The three hotel monopolies transferred $22.3 billion to shareholders over the last three years, according to the union. The increased revenue has only translated to more strain on hotel workers, compounded by rising inflation.
Valenica Smith, a housekeeper at Marriott Marquis, told monopoly news outlet CBS, “I’m tired. My body’s aching. Then I just found out I got arthritis in my spine, so it’s like wear and tear on my body, and I am too young. We work too damn hard to live like this.”
According to a 2025 survey done by the union, about a third of the workers can’t cover rent, mortgage, or pay utilities. A doorman told The Worker that he lives in Indiana because he can’t afford to live in Chicago, commuting long distances which itself is another added expense.
Illinois Democrat mafia Governor JB Pritzker’s family owns Hyatt Hotels and is the sixth richest family in the US, according to Forbes, worth $53.2 billion. The governor’s billionaire cousin Thomas Pritzker stepped down from executive chairman this year due to allegations of sex trafficking and involvement with finance monopolist and trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The last major hotel strike in Chicago was in 2018, when workers at 26 hotels citywide picketed for about a month.
Image: Picket outside the Hyatt Regency Chicago. Credit: The Worker.
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