Hotel workers at the Hilton Americas-Houston downtown went on strike before dawn Monday, escalating their demand for higher wages and beginning their union’s first hotel strike in Texas.
The Labor Day action marked the latest move in a labor dispute with management at one of Houston’s largest hotels. Among their demands is a $23-an-hour minimum wage. Some workers make as little as $16.50 an hour, which is more than double the state minimum wage of $7.25 but well below some estimates for the area’s living wage.
“The workers are feeling this need urgently, so that’s why the decision was made,” said Franchesca Caraballo, president of Unite Here Local 23’s Texas chapter,which represents more than 400 of the hotel’s hourly and tipped workers. Unite Here Local 23 representsabout 28,000 hospitality workers across 12 states. “We have to take it up several notches here to turn up the pressure on this company.”…