Boston hotel workers are back at the picket line on Labor Day which changed the annual Labor Day breakfast event to an outdoor event. It originally was supposed to take play in the Hilton Park Plaza.
UNITE HERE Local 26 announced Sunday morning that workers at Hilton Logan Airport, Hilton-Hampton Inn Boston Seaport, and Fairmont Copley Plaza are also out on strike to protest staffing and service cuts and unsuccessful efforts to gain higher wages in contract talks. The striking workers include room attendants, front desk agents, doormen, cooks, dishwashers and banquet servers.
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"I'm on strike because I’m literally tired of working in multiple departments and having an unpredictable weekly schedule just so I can make 40 hours a week," Michael Correa, a barback at the Hilton Boston Logan Airport Hotel for 17 years, said in a statement. "Going on strike is a huge sacrifice, but it’s something I have to do for myself and my two daughters."
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Unions are a core constituency for Democrats and breakfast organizers said Friday they have contingency plans for the event if there's a strike, but wouldn't share specifics. They also declined to say why they chose Hilton Park Plaza as the venue given that workers there have endured months of unsuccessful contract talks.
At about 9:15 a.m. Sunday, a breakfast organizer confirmed to the News Service that the breakfast will be held outside instead of in the hotel, saying organizers had also been privately weighing a union hall as a venue location depending on Monday's weather forecast.
"We will not cross the picket line but we will still celebrate Labor Day together," the Greater Boston Labor Council said, with one official saying city permits had been obtained and it would be the first time the breakfast has ever been held outdoors.
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Breakfast attendees have been invited to join striking workers at a rally outside the Park Plaza hotel at 7 a.m. Monday. Registration opens at 7:30 a.m. with guests asked to visit a registration table near the intersection of Arlington Street and Columbus Avenue to receive table assignments. At 9 a.m. breakfast will be served by union workers to guests seated at tables on Columbus Avenue.
In an advisory on Friday, the council said breakfast attendees will include Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Gov. Maura Healey, Attorney General Andrea Campbell and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.
On Sunday, the union invited media to the Hilton Park Plaza to interview workers on the picket line beginning at 5 a.m.
Roughly 4,500 workers who are members of UNITE HERE Local 26 have agreed to authorize strikes across 35 hotels after months of rocky contract negotiations with hotel companies. The News Service on Wednesday caught up with some of those workers at 32BJ SEIU's office in downtown Boston where they were registering for strike pay and picket duty, and making picket signs.
UNITE HERE Local 26 says its members won "record contracts" in 2023 after strikes at Los Angeles hotels and Detroit casinos. There are currently no definitive plans for strikes at the other 31 Boston hotels where workers have authorized strikes, an official said.
