Health Care Industry Price-Gouging Has Contributed to Strike, Union Says

Hotel workers’ union UNITE HERE Local 2 today called on the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference to cancel its 2025 event, saying a months-long hotel strike means the event cannot be held successfully in San Francisco. The union added that pharmaceutical and other health care executives and investors who would normally attend the invitation-only conference are responsible for inflated health care costs that have contributed to the labor dispute. The conference is scheduled for January 13-16, 2025.

Approx. 2,500 Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt workers are striking for affordable health care, better pay, and fair workloads at six hotels in San Francisco – including Marriott’s Westin St. Francis, the primary J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference venue. The union has launched a robust outreach program – including emails, phone calls, and in-person office visits – to inform prospective attendees of the labor dispute and urge them not to attend the conference if it remains in San Francisco. The struck hotels account for 27.5 percent of the city’s full-service hotel rooms.

Guests at hotels where workers are on strike have reported service disruptions including piles of trash and used linens in hotel hallways; unavailable daily housekeeping; closed bars and restaurants, and more. The union’s website HotelStrikeReviews.org includes strike-related reviews from TripAdvisor, Yelp, Google, and other leading travel review sites.

Affordable health care is a key sticking point in ongoing contract negotiations. Hotel workers are asking to keep their current union health care plan, but Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott say it’s too expensive and have proposed to phase it out.

“The J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference represents the very worst of the health care industry,” said Lizzy Tapia, President of UNITE HERE Local 2. “The big pharma and insurance executives who do deals at J.P. Morgan every year have driven up the price of health care – and now, thousands of workers are on strike because the hotels don’t want to pay these out-of-control costs. The health care industry’s greed has come back to bite them, because they’ve caused such a huge strike that they can’t hold their conference successfully in San Francisco this year.”

“I can’t believe anyone who works in health care would try to cross our picket line when we are fighting to keep our insurance,” said Ester Yuliani, a buffet attendant at Marriott’s Westin St. Francis, the primary venue for the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. “Last year I had to get surgery to remove a tumor, and because we have good insurance, I didn't get a huge bill. Marriott’s proposals are so extreme that they are trying to phase out our union health care, but I’m not going to let that happen.”

The strike began on Sept. 22 and includes 2,500 housekeepers, servers, bartenders, cooks, dishwashers, bellhops, doormen, and more at the Grand Hyatt San Francisco, Hilton San Francisco Union Square, Palace Hotel (Marriott Luxury Collection), San Francisco Marriott Union Square, San Francisco Marriott Marquis, and Westin St. Francis (Marriott). Additional strikes could begin at any time at eight other hotels. Guests can use the union’s live Labor Dispute Map to track strike activity.

Hotel workers with the UNITE HERE Local 2 union are asking the hotels to “Bet on SF” by investing in hotel staff, maintaining their health care, and restoring guest services. In August, workers offered to sacrifice most guaranteed wage increases and make their own pay contingent on future hotel profits. They want hotels to reopen restaurants that bring foot traffic downtown, staff up on doormen who serve as eyes on the street, and take other proactive measures to end the “doom loop.”

The union has warned that the hotel’s extreme negotiating positions – including phasing out union health care – threaten the city’s economic recovery. Dozens of clients that book room blocks and/or events have pulled their business from San Francisco hotels since the strike began.

Over 10,000 hotel workers have gone on strike in eleven cities across the U.S. since Labor Day; San Francisco is the only city where workers remain on strike.

UNITE HERE Local 2 is the hospitality workers’ union in San Francisco, San Mateo County, and the East and North Bay, representing over 15,000 workers in hotels, restaurants, tech cafeterias, sports stadiums, and at SFO and OAK.

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