Dive Brief:
- On Monday, the Hotel Association of New York and the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council tentatively reached a deal for a new contract, six weeks ahead of the current contract’s expiration on June 30, the hotel owners’ association and the hotel workers’ union announced.
- The Industry-Wide Agreement, an eight-year contract featuring wage increases and improved workers benefits, will cover some 27,000 workers employed at more than 200 hotels in New York City, Vijay Dandapani, president and CEO of HANYC, and Rich Maroko, president of HTC, said in a joint statement obtained by Hotel Dive.
- HTC members will vote Thursday to ratify the agreement. If they do so, it will avert a previously anticipated strike during the FIFA World Cup.
Dive Insight:
Under the IWA, wages for non-tipped workers will increase by $21.20 over the life of the contract, which averages to more than 5% each year, according to HANYC. The wage increases, more than 2.5 times the average increases in the last contract, represent the “biggest wage increases in our union’s history,” Maroko said in a statement.
“Over the life of the agreement, your wages will increase, on average, by more than 50%,” Maroko said in a Monday letter to his constituents. “By the end of the contract, Room Attendants and other non-tipped workers will be earning six-figures.”
The agreement also cements the continuation of free healthcare for union members and their families for the life of the contract, with employer contributions increasing, per HANYC.
Hotels will increase their contributions to the Health Benefits Fund by three percentage points from 27.25% to 30.25% of payroll, a total value of nearly $65 million per year, according to Maroko. The IWA also provides an increase in employer contributions to the Pension Fund in the first year of the contract, he said.
The agreement also establishes new housing and childcare funds, which hotels will finance “to help offset financial burdens for workers,” according to HANYC. Additional paid time off; fully paid family leave for new parents; and paid time off to vote in local, state and federal elections are also codified in the IWA.
“This agreement includes wage increases that workers deserve, while preserving and improving benefits long term, establishing employer-funded housing and childcare funds, and guaranteeing labor peace until 2034,” Dandapani and Maroko said in a joint statement. “This new contract will help preserve New York City’s status as a world class destination for tourists, supporting a tourism economy that employs hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.”
The agreement was met after HTC “carried out sophisticated and effective legal and political strategies, engaged in thousands of conversations with employers, and executed numerous bargaining strategies to create the leverage we needed,” Maroko said. Additionally, “the threat of a strike or a picket line is our union’s most powerful weapon,” and HTC members successfully conveyed to hotels that they “wouldn’t hesitate to strike,” he added.
Roughly 45 hotels have not yet agreed to the IWA, according to HTC.
