Dive Brief:
- Workers are on strike at two hotels owned by RLJ Lodging Trust and operated by Aimbridge Hospitality in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, according to a news release from hospitality worker union Unite Here Local 11.
- On Saturday morning, employees at both the Hilton Garden Inn hotel in Hollywood and the Wyndham Historic District hotel in Philadelphia, walked off the job and formed picket lines. The workers are calling for higher wages, better benefits and improved working conditions.
- In addition, members of Teamsters Local 986 at the Rio Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas voted Monday to authorize a strike over unfair labor practices, according to a news release. That vote came following almost two years of stalled negotiations with property owner and Hyatt Resorts affiliate Dreamscape, per the release.
Dive Insight:
The strikes follow a similar action from union workers at the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown and the Hampton Inn Philadelphia Center City last month. That strike, which led to a four-day work stoppage, concluded with Hampton Inn Philadelphia Center City securing “major improvements to wages, healthcare, and working conditions,” according to a Nov. 8 press release from Unite Here Philly Local 274. No additional information was given regarding contract negotiations with Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown workers.
“Hotel workers like me go on strike to win raises that keep up with the rising cost of living, pensions, high quality union healthcare, and safe workloads,” Brent Allen, a restaurant server at the Wyndham Historic District and a Unite Here Philly Local 274 member, said in Saturday’s release. “We’re going to welcome millions of visitors to Philly in 2026, but most of us can’t pay our basic bills. We deserve to be able to live dignified lives but that can only happen if the hotel owner and operator pay us what we deserve.”
The Hilton Garden Inn hotel in Los Angeles is a 160-room hotel, while the Wyndham Historic District hotel in Philadelphia features 360 rooms. Hotel owner RLJ Lodging Trust’s portfolio features 94 hotels with about 21,000 rooms across the U.S., plus ownership interest in one 171-room unconsolidated hotel, per the company’s website.
Unite Here’s release stated that RLJ Lodging Trust contributed $25,000 toward an effort to defeat a citywide ordinance to raise the minimum wage in Los Angeles to $30 an hour by July 1, 2028. That bill passed the Los Angeles City Council in May, but multiple travel and hospitality industry associations, including the American Hotel & Lodging Association, are working to have the decision reversed, claiming the wage increase would harm the city’s hotel owners and operators.
Rising costs, including labor, were a leading concern expressed by hospitality professionals at this year’s Lodging Conference.
These latest strikes come after Aimbridge was at the center of a major union dispute last year.
In April 2024, hundreds of workers at Aimbridge-operated hotels in Southern California went on strike following worker reports of harassment and verbal abuse and what Unite Here called a “woefully inadequate” response from Aimbridge.
Unite Here Local 11 represents more than 32,000 hospitality workers across Southern California and Arizona, while Unite Here Local 274 represents about 4,000 private-sector hotel and food service workers throughout the Philadelphia region, per the release. Both unions are affiliates of Unite Here, which represents about 300,000 workers in the gaming, hotel and food service industries across North America.
