By the time early fall rolled around in 2024, the hotel industry had more than 10,000 workers scattered across major U.S. markets on picket lines in a historic wave of strikes.
At the same point this year, roughly 400 workers from one hotel are in a similar position.
In one of the major industry shifts year over year, hotel-focused labor activity has quieted down significantly in 2025.
Workers at the Hilton Americas-Houston in Houston have been the one noteworthy exception to the rule, beginning a strike in early September and voting to extend that labor action twice — with the strike authorization now extending to Oct. 12.
The contract for workers at that property expired in June, and officials with hospitality-focused labor union Unite Here say they're pushing for better wages.
“I’ve been with this company for over 21 years. It’s a constant struggle to cover the cost of my utilities and pay for food, all while I’m paying off medical bills. My husband recently had two strokes, so I work to provide for both of us, and it’s been hard. I’m on strike fighting for a living wage so that I don’t have to worry about whether I can afford for my husband to be taken care of, or if we can afford to pay his medical bills, or if we can even keep the lights on,” laundry attendant Lashay Hampton said in a news release announcing that last strike extension.
According to Unite Here's own tracker of strikes and labor disputes, the only other ongoing dispute is a lockout of 90 employees at a Canadian property — the Coast Victoria Hotel & Marina by APA in Victoria, British Columbia.
At this same point in 2024, strikes were widespread across the U.S., with workers from 25 hotels walking off during Labor Day weekend. Impacted markets included Baltimore; Boston; Honolulu and Kauai, Hawaii; Greenwich and New Haven, Connecticut; Oakland; Providence, Rhode Island; San Diego; San Francisco; San Jose; and Seattle.
And at that point, labor strife was top of mind for hotel ownership groups. In the 2024 fall survey of the Hospitality Asset Managers Association, 41.5% of respondents ranked union activity as a factor they were most concerned about. That metric fell to 23.5% in the fall 2025 iteration of that survey.
But Chad Sorensen, managing director and CEO of CHMWarnick and president of HAMA, said he's concerned the quieter tact taken by labor unions this year doesn't mean they aren't active.
"While there appears to be a lull in union related activity in some markets, that’s actually not the case," he said, via email. "The water may appear calm on the surface, but it is quite tumultuous below the surface. And that is almost without exception. Owners that allow their union related strategies to become stale, or are not paying attention to what is going on in other markets, will eventually, and unnecessarily, feel the negative impact."
The 2025 labor survey issued by labor and employment focused law firm Littler noted a drop in the pace of union organizing in the first half of the year, with 75% of businesses saying they haven't encountered organizing activities. The survey also noted 61% of large employers recently updated their labor relations strategy.
The top drivers for organizing activities are work/life balance (38%), desire for input into business decisions (31%) and job security (29%).
To Sorensen's point, the hotel industry seems to have taken notice from the active 2024. While 36% of respondents in the broad survey noted they are "not prepared at all" to respond to union organizing, just 19% of retail and hospitality employers claimed to not be prepared.
A change in administration and political realities likely impacted unions' ability to be active in the year, with the Trump administration leaving the National Labor Relations Board with vacancies for the majority of the year before nominating some conservative board members in August and having a major chilling affect on high-profile union activities such as a Whole Foods organizing effort in Philadelphia.
The hotel industry's reprieve on union activity might prove to be a short one, with several high-profile citywide union contracts timed to expire ahead of major events — most notably Los Angeles hotel and airport workers' deals being set to expire ahead of the 2028 Olympics.
That market has also represented a shift in tact for unions, who have been championing industry specific minimum wages ramping up to $30 an hour for hotel workers by the time the Summer Olympics open in that city.
American Hotel & Lodging Association officials had hoped to get a ballot referendum in place to eventually repeal those new minimum wage rules, but those efforts failed.
“Tens of thousands of Los Angeles voters agreed that the economic toll of the ordinance will extend far beyond the hospitality sector," said AHLA President and CEO Rosanna Maietta in a statement. "Today’s decision denies Angelenos the opportunity to voice their opposition to this flawed proposal. It’s clear that the ordinance will jeopardize jobs, push hotels to the brink of closure, severely cut tax revenue the city desperately needs, and leave the city grossly unprepared for the 2028 Olympic Games. The mayor has made a clear commitment to broker a solution that averts these severe consequences. We call on her to proceed quickly.”