PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Workers at a handful of Philadelphia hotels have threatened to walk out during the FIFA World Cup if their employers don’t meet their contract demands. They’re looking for the same contract recently won by employees at three other hotels in the city.
High wind gusts didn’t deter members of UNITE HERE Local 274 from announcing their demands at 19th and Market streets Wednesday afternoon. Among other things, they want a minimum baseline pay of $30/hour and better access to health care for workers’ families.
If the five hotels — the Wyndham Philadelphia Historic District, Hilton Garden Inn Center City, Warwick Hotel Rittenhouse, Penn’s Landing Hilton, and Sheraton Downtown — don’t offer satisfactory contracts by June 12th, UNITE HERE workers said they would walk out.
“I don’t know that they could make it more than a day without us,” said Mariah Maglaughlin, a server at the Wyndham Historic District. “What they have to decide is, how much of your reputation do you want to suffer until you decide to give us what we’re worth?”
June 14 is the date of the first of six FIFA World Cup matches Philadelphia will host. Corean Holloway, who does laundry at the Warwick in Rittenhouse, said she and her colleagues are crucial to the success of this summer’s semiquincentennial celebrations.
“We’re going to do the job, but give us a fair contract,” said Holloway. “In Philadelphia, everybody is getting ready to make money. So why shouldn’t it be shared with the people that work for them?”
KYW Newsradio is awaiting response from the five hotels’ owners. The Rittenhouse Sonesta, Center City Hampton Inn, and University City Sheraton recently met these demands, which the union celebrated.
