Dozens of people were arrested after striking hotel workers and other demonstrators staged a sit-in on the Powell Street cable car tracks Wednesday evening.
In all, 85 people were arrested for the obstruction of free movement after failing to abide by an order to disperse, a San Francisco Police Department spokesperson said by email Thursday. The demonstrators were blocking traffic, the police spokesperson said. One person was cited and released at the scene of the protest while 84 others were released from the SFPD’s Northern Station on Wednesday.
They were a small fraction of the 2,000 people demonstrating in the streets around Union Square — home to many of the city’s big hotels — to demand better pay and health care.
As they sat on the asphalt, demonstrators chanted, “Who’s got the power? We’ve got the power! What kind of power? Union power!” Uniformed San Francisco police officers stood near the group.
John Shaver, who is not a hotel worker but is supportive of the strike, was among those sitting on the tracks.
“One job should be enough,” Shaver said. “They deserve fair wages, health care, benefits, and fair working hours.”
Around 6 p.m., police started detaining people on the street and escorting them to sheriff’s office buses.
“They’ve been very peaceful. Everyone’s very cooperative,” Manning told The Standard.
Workers from various Hyatt-, Hilton-, and Marriott-branded hotels in San Francisco have been on strike since late September, picketing in front of downtown establishments frequented by tourists, such as the Marriott Union Square, the Westin St. Francis, and the Palace Hotel.
The strike would have started earlier, Unite Here Local 2 President Lizzy Tapia said, but union members wanted to reciprocate Salesforce’s commitment to the city by staffing up for its Dreamforce conference.
In the first year of the shutdown, San Francisco lost 90% of its hotel room tax revenue from pre-pandemic levels, according to data from the mayor’s budget office. The recovery has been slow. The most recently reported figure, $253 million, is only over half of 2019’s $408 million.
As a result, staffing levels have been cut across the city’s hotels for three years now, leaving skeleton crews to operate many of the often large properties. The previous union action in 2018 won a deal for higher wages, but that contract expired in August 2022. Because of pandemic disruptions, both sides agreed to extend that contract for another two years before reaching the current impasse.
In light of San Francisco’s flagging recovery, Unite Here negotiators say they are now making proposals they would’ve never made in previous times, such as forgoing guaranteed wage increases by making pay contingent to hotel profits. But the two sides remain far apart on the issue of health care. The hotels want to move to a plan under their sole control, removing employees from the governance structure, which the union says is out of the question.
“When they make decisions about our health care, they make bad decisions,” said Unite Here Local 2 spokesperson Ted Waechter.
The union is also asking the hotels to increase staffing back to near pre-pandemic levels despite the current drop-off in revenues. They argue that when guests have a good experience, as opposed to the reduced services now, they will be more inclined to come back.
“We are proposing proactive measures to end the doom loop,” Tapia said. “The hotels are holding us back. It’s time for the hotels to join us and bet on SF.”
Andre Wilkins works at the Enterprise car rental location just across from the Hilton at Union Square. He said the “bet on SF” signs are new, as is the march.
“Today’s the first day I’ve seen the streets blocked,” he said.
Despite the disruption, Wilkins said he empathizes with the protesters.
“It’s definitely annoying,” he said. “But if I were in their shoes, I’d probably do the same thing.”
Mario Fernández, a Spanish tourist, arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday. Fernandez, who has relatives who work in hotels, told The Standard it pains him to see the plight of working people in San Francisco.
“It makes me feel sorry to see the poverty in this city,” he told The Standard in Spanish.
The three major hotel brands are negotiating with the union together as a bloc.
When asked about the latest escalation by the union, Michael D’Angelo, head of labor relations for Hyatt’s North and South American portfolio, said the company is “disappointed that Unite Here Local 2 continues to strike” and that Hyatt has not yet been contacted to resume bargaining since the strike began — a claim that Waechter did not dispute but added that the union’s most recent proposal in August had not garnered a response either.
“We have offered competitive wages, health care, and retirement benefits at the hotel, including an economic package that maintains no-cost health care for our colleagues,” D’Angelo said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to negotiate fair contracts and recognize the contributions of Hyatt employees.”