For Immediate Release: UNITE HERE Local 5 members rally at the Modern Honolulu and Ilikai Hotel to protest lack of daily room cleaning

UNITE HERE Local 5 members rally at the Modern Honolulu and Ilikai Hotel to protest lack of daily room cleaning

With hotel guest occupancy reaching up to 99%, Local 5 members are demanding to restore hotel services and to bring workers back

For photos and videos: CLICK HERE

 

 (Honolulu, HI) – Dozens of UNITE HERE Local 5 hotel workers rally to demand the reinstatement of daily room cleaning in hotels. Tourists numbers are reaching record-highs in the pandemic, but the number of jobs that have returned is still low. Hotels are seeing up to 99% in guest occupancy, yet only 62% of Local 5 members in the hospitality industry have returned to work.

 

Hotel workers chanted and marched around the two hotel properties, handing out leaflets to guests to encourage them to request daily room cleaning. They protested against the hotels’ decision to make room cleaning optional, instead of the daily service that was offered before the pandemic.

 

Juliana Alcaraz, a housekeeper at the Modern Honolulu for 10 years stated, “These corporations do not care about us; they only want profits. It is hurting Hawaii’s working people and the guests who come here to visit. We need to bring back daily room cleaning so we can provide better service and bring more workers back.”

 

Housekeeping departments are the largest in almost every hotel property and the lack of daily room cleaning services impacts thousands of workers who are still waiting to get called back to work. For the few workers who have returned, no daily room cleaning means increased workload and negative interactions from guests.

 

Purie Ibalio, a housekeeper at Modern Honolulu shared, “Before the pandemic, we take roughly 45 minutes cleaning check-out rooms. Now it takes us two hours because it can be several days before anyone has cleaned the room. The hotel only staffs 10 housekeepers per shift when it was up to 20 pre-pandemic. Guests are yelling at us to clean their rooms and we are not allowed to.”

 

The Modern Honolulu and the Ilikai Hotel are among the properties where daily room cleaning is not offered. Hotel guests in both properties are showing support to the workers. Chris, a visitor from Los Angeles shared, “They are not cleaning your rooms at all. We’re here [for] two weeks; we get to request linen and throw our own trash out. I get to make my own bed for two weeks—that’s not a vacation.”

 

UNITE HERE Local 5 members rallied in three shifts throughout the day. The Union continued negotiations with Diamond Resorts, the owner of the Modern Honolulu. As of today, the company refused to reinstate daily room cleaning.

 

Ilikai Hotel and Luxury Suited is operated by an affiliate of Aqua-Aston, which is a subsidiary of Marriott Vacations Worldwide. MVW’s CEO was paid $5,411,087 in 2020; the median worker was paid $29,929. The CEO made 181x the median worker’s pay.

 

Modern Honolulu is owned by Diamond Resorts. CEO compensation for Diamond Resorts is not publicly available, since Diamond is owned by Apollo, a private equity firm. Diamond Resorts is being acquired by Hilton Grand Vacations. According to Hilton Grand Vacations’ 2021 proxy filing, the ratio of HGV’s CEO pay to median HGV worker pay was 150:1. Median worker compensation was calculated as $46,409.  The CEO’s total compensation was $6,945,285.

 

 

Local 5 represents approximately 12,000 workers throughout Hawaii who work in the hospitality, health care and food service industries and is an affiliate of UNITE HERE, an international union that represents over 300,000 workers throughout the U.S. and Canada. For more information, visit www.unitehere5.org.

# # #

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For Immediate Release: UNITE HERE Local 5 hospitality and health care workers sign wave in Waianae to protect local jobs

UNITEHERE! Local 5

Press Release for July 10, 2021

Media Contact:

Bryant de Venecia

(808) 546-0024

bdevenecia@5.unitehere.org

 

UNITE HERE Local 5 hospitality and health care workers sign wave in Waianae to protect local jobs

Photos and videos: Click Here

 

(Waianae, HI) – More than 300 UNITE HERE Local 5 members sign wave in Waianae to send a message that workers are standing up against large corporations taking advantage of the pandemic. Members from a dozen labor unions across industries joined in solidarity as hospitality and healthcare workers fight to keep their jobs.

 

The state has seen an influx of travelers to the islands with some hotels getting up to 100% occupancy rates. In spite of this, hotels are not bringing all the hospitality workers back to work. Almost 4,000 Local 5 members in the tourism industry are still waiting to get recalled. Meanwhile, in the health care industry, Local 5 members at Kaiser Permanente are fighting to keep local jobs in Hawaii after the company announced their plan to outsource dozens of jobs to California.

 

Local 5 members chose to organize the action in Waianae to stand in solidarity with the west side community. Kaiser Permanente abandoned the leeward coast residents by choosing to keep the Nanaikeola clinic closed. In addition to fighting for local jobs, union members are demanding to reinstate the community’s access to healthcare.

 

Sheena Mae Lapitan, a Licensed Practical Nurse who used to work at Kaiser Nanaikeola clinic shared, “Kaiser Nanaikeola has been providing healthcare to our west side community for many years.  As a Waianae resident, I know all too well of how traffic and road work can affect our way of living.  We rely heavily on our local west side businesses, and the closing of this clinic means less healthcare access for our community.  For decades, the Nanaikeola clinic has served our west side families and it should reopen to continue serving the next generations to come.”

 

Zena Nasau, a hotel worker at Airport Plaza hotel for 19 years and a resident at the Nanakuli Homesteads shared, “From access to health care, unemployment, environmental issues, to homelessness—the Leeward coast is an intersection of social issues. Big corporations like the hotels and Kaiser Permanente are using this pandemic as an excuse to implement changes that make it harder for our community to survive. Our Union is showing that we are standing up and we’re not going anywhere, even if our state and industry leaders already abandoned us.”

 

Local 5 members also donated hygiene items and canned goods to the local homeless resource center to be distributed to our community members in need. The action was participated by several Hawaii labor unions including Hawaii State AFL-CIO, Hawaii Nurses & Health care Professionals(HNHP), Union of Health Care Professionals (UNAC/UHCP), AFA-HAL Council 43 (Hawaiian Airlines Flight Attendants), UFCW Local 480 (United Food and Commercial Workers), IAM Local Lodge 1998, APWU (Hawaii Based Postal Workers), Bricklayers Local 1, Musicians Union Local 677, IATSE Local 665, IBEW Local 1260, and other local labor unions.

 

Local 5 represents approximately 12,000 workers throughout Hawaii who work in the hospitality, health care and food service industries and is an affiliate of UNITE HERE, an international union that represents over 300,000 workers throughout the U.S. and Canada. For more information, visit www.unitehere5.org.

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Overworked, underpaid: workers rail against hotel chains’ cost-cutting

(The Guardian) – By Michael Sainato. Julie Gabot has worked as a housekeeper at the Marriott-operated Sheraton Waikiki for over 30 years. She was recalled to work in November, but said many of her co-workers have yet to be recalled even as the hotel occupancy rates have recovered, and she’s been faced with higher workloads.