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By Katy St. Clair/Bay City News
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Hilton hotel workers in San Francisco, who have been on strike for the past three months, have reached a tentative agreement and will vote to ratify it on Tuesday, the union announced Monday.
Once ratified, the new contract will mark a definitive end to strikes at Marriott, Hyatt and Hilton hotels across the city that began in the fall.
Marriott workers reached agreements on Thursday, followed by Hyatt on Friday. According to Ted Waechter, spokesman for the Unite Here Local 2 union, which represents the workers, the Hilton agreement is the same one ratified last week by striking Hyatt and Marriott workers.
The tentative agreement covers about 900 workers, 650 of whom have been on strike for more than three months, according to Waechter. The hotels include the Hilton San Francisco Union Square and about 250 workers at Hilton's Parc 55 hotel, who were prepared to strike.
All agreements with hotels include maintaining workers' health plans, wage increases and protections against staff shortages and increased workloads.
Many of the 2,500 workers have been on strike for about 93 days, demonstrating daily in Union Square, which is the site of a Hilton and the nearby Grand Hyatt on Stockton Street.
“San Francisco hotel workers are indomitable,” Lizzy Tapia, president of Unite Here Local 2, said Monday. “Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott workers refused to give up their health care or back down, and we showed on the picket line that we are not afraid of a tough fight. As contract negotiations with the city’s other full-service hotels begin in the new year, they should know that this is the new standard they must accept for their own employees.”
Hilton was not immediately available for comment.
Unite Here Local 2 represents approximately 15,000 hotel, airport and food service workers in San Francisco and San Mateo counties.