Sheraton and Hampton union hotel staff walked out of work and onto picket lines Sunday morning, two weeks after Sheraton workers voted to authorize a strike.
The union wants to lock in a new contract ahead of a tourist season next year expected to drive up company profits and strain hotel staff. Approximately 190 union members are striking.
Sheraton and Hampton workers make up about 20% of the room attendants, cooks, banquet staff, bartenders, dishwashers, and servers represented by Unite Here Local 274 in Philadelphia. The workers, at eight different hotels, are currently negotiating contracts.
Sheraton and Hampton hotel employees are seeking wage and pension increases, more health care coverage, and staffing increases, the union said in a press release.
Representatives for Miami-based private investor Cambridge Landmark, which owns the Sheraton, and Blackstone Inc.’s real estate investment trust, which owns the Hampton, were not immediately available.
Philadelphia has several high profile events scheduled for next year, including the FIFA World Cup at Lincoln Financial Field, the Major League Baseball All Star Game at Citizens Bank Park, and the city’s 250th anniversary celebration, said union organizer Dermot Delude. This all translates into more work for staffers.
“It’s going to be a blockbuster tourism year,” Delude said of 2026. “We need to lock in our gains now.”
Last year, elsewhere in the country about 12,000 hotel workers went on strike, obtaining pay raises that took them above $30 per hour, Delude said. Sheraton staff are currently at $22.11, and are seeking a similar pay increase.
Outside the Sheraton Downtown, housekeeping worker Katrina Quarles said one of the union proposals that would change her life doesn’t even involve upping her pay.
Quarles explained that her job involves “turning over” 16 hotel rooms every day: changing out linens, cleaning each room, and getting them up to standard for the next guest.
“It’s very strenuous work,” said the 43-year-old from Fishtown. No matter how messy each room is, each housekeeping worker has 30 minutes to do this job.
“The airline people are usually neat,” Quarles said, speaking of the flight attendants and pilots who regularly stay at the hotel. “If we got a room of soccer kids, that’s going to take 45 minutes.”
If the worker doesn’t do it in time, they can be “written up” by management, Quarles said. That sets housekeeping staff up for failure.
Turning over 16 rooms per day, leaves her a half hour for lunch if everything goes perfectly. The union’s proposal would reduce her workload from 16 rooms to 15.
Sheraton Banquet Steward Shafeek Anderson said adequate staffing levels are a top concern of his. He said the staff members per shift have gradually declined over the past five years, putting pressure on workers who oversee a banquet hall that was accommodating 1,300 people for the Creation Festival, a fan convention for the TV show Supernatural.
“We’re working harder, but we don’t have the staffing to keep up with that work,” said Anderson. He’s 27, but pointed out that many of his colleagues are older people, pushed to their physical limits.
The strike may mark an uptick in hotel union activity in the city ahead of 2026. Terrence Jones, a banquet hall worker at Hilton Garden Inn, joined the striking workers as they circled the Sheraton.
Hilton isn’t on strike, Jones said. “Not yet, but we are working without a contract right now.”