Report on Striking Marriott Workers Across the US

Marriott International is the largest hotel company in the world, with locations spread across the globe, and with many hotel chains — Sheraton, Ritz-Carlton, Gaylord, and Renaissance to name a few famous examples — under its ownership. In 2017, the business magazine Fortune gave Marriott the 35th place in its list of the “Top 100 Companies to Work For”, saying, “Employees feel that at Marriott, we are family”. But this was never the case, and Marriott workers revealed that when they had a “falling-out with their family”- roughly 8,000 Marriott workers in several cities across the US went out on strike near the beginning of October.

The strike has been led by the Unite Here union. In Marriott, the union represents 20,000 workers, and 250,000 workers in other industries.The union wrote that Marriott’s profits, since the 2008 recession, have gone up nearly 280%, while Marriott workers’ wages have only gone up 7% in those same years and working hours have been reduced. The strike efforts are concentrated in those Marriott hotels where wages lag especially behind. Although the demands vary from one city to the other, the common demands are: job security against automation, increased wages, and better working conditions. But primarily, the workers and the union are raising the slogan “One Job Should Be Enough” not having to work two or three full-time jobs like many do to survive.

The strikes began in Boston at the beginning of October with 1,500 workers walking out without notice. A few days later, 4,000 workers in San Francisco joined the strike. A Unite Here spokeswoman said, “We see ourselves at Unite Here as helping to restore the strike to the labor movement”. This is terrible news for the bourgeoisie that wants to always punch the proletariat in the gut and not hear the slightest complaint from them. And so, Marriott responded that they “are disappointed that Unite Here has chosen to resort to a strike”. Marriott would much rather have their workers roll over instead — the last thing being united action! The method of strikes, while previously on the decline, has now become more common in the US proletariat’s economic struggles, following the heroic example of the national teachers’ strikes that began earlier this year and is still going on in some districts. Across the country, workers are realizing their common struggle and the valuable lessons to be learned from their comrades-in-arms.

While some striking workers have managed to negotiate with their landlords to pardon rent payments, as the strikes continued into their fourth week, this solidarity can only be temporary and conditional. Besides aids from family members and donations, workers are collaborating to provide for another. Union treasurer Carlos Aramayo told Bostonomix, “I know there’s been a lot of informal banding together of folks who are on the picket lines. People know each other because they work together every day, and they’re friends with each other, and they really want to care for each other”.

Whatever Fortune or company slogans imagine, neither Marriott nor any other company is a family or community. There are no bonds between the worker and the owner that are not exploitative, even if they are dressed up in sheep’s clothing, in the illusion that the company who treats you as a tool for their own enrichment somehow cares for you. The only community for the proletariat is the international proletariat itself. Class unity is its only strength!