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Season 6, Episode 17

UNITE HERE Local 2 earns major contract gains for service workers

UNITE HERE Local 2 Gray

 

Guest Name:


Lizzy Tapia

Guest Website:


UNITE HERE Local 2 

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Lizzy Tapia, President of UNITE HERE Local 2, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the 93-day hotel worker strike in San Francisco that secured significant gains for workers.

As president of UNITE HERE Local 2, Tapia represents over 15,000 workers in hotels, restaurants and airports in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nearly 2,500 hotel workers, accounting for a little more than 27 percent of the city's total hotel rooms, were involved in the 93-day strike. The new contract was approved by a 99.4 percent ratification vote.

The strike, which began during Labor Day weekend, was a coordinated effort across multiple areas, focusing on major hotel chains Hyatt, Marriott and Hilton. Tapia emphasized the importance of affordable healthcare, decent wage increases and improved staffing levels. She explained that workers were seeking dignified treatment and livable wages. The strike resulted in an immediate $3 per hour wage increase, with additional raises throughout the four-year contract. 

One of the significant challenges was the hotels' attempt to reduce staffing under the guise of pandemic safety measures. Tapia said the union was able to expose these tactics and proved they were used to cut costs at the expense of workers' jobs and benefits. Tapia credited the members' solidarity and resilience while adding that other unions could achieve similar success in negotiations with unity among members.

Listen to the complete episode of the AWF Union Podcast to learn more about Unite Here Local 2 and its ongoing efforts.


America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

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