The Hotel & Gaming Trades Council, AFL-CIO is the union for hotel and gaming workers across New York & New Jersey
New York’s elected officials made dramatic improvements to the state’s unemployment system. In the event hotel management forces a strike in 2026 negotiations, these improvements mean our members will be able to collect higher unemployment benefits and will get benefits sooner – allowing us to strike for however long it takes.
The new, 8-year agreement delivers the biggest wage increases in our union’s history, maintains free family healthcare, increases pension contributions, provides new benefit funds, protects your jobs, improves paid time off, expands your rights at work, and strengthens our union’s ability to enforce the contract – all without a single giveback.
Our union's power comes from our ability to take collective action. When thousands of members in union t-shirts are out on the street demanding justice, you can't look away. Do your part and make sure our union is impossible to ignore.
Union delegates are the first line of defense in enforcing our contract. Our training program teaches delegates the nuts and bolts of our contracts, the grievance and arbitration process, and the law and gives delegates more knowledge and tools to use in their next grievance meeting.
It's no accident that our union has the best contracts in the world for hotel and gaming workers. To win contracts as strong as ours, it takes more than being bold and persuasive at the negotiating table. We need to come to the table with leverage.
Our members play a key role in building our power by volunteering and organizing the HEAT SYSTEM: our union's network for communicating with our members and mobilizing in large numbers. As the months count down to the expiration of our NYC contract on June 30, 2026, we're engaging a new generation of HEAT CAPTAINS to lead the fight.
Our members have an experienced team of business agents, lawyers, organizers, and other professionals who help enforce the contract at their workplace, defend them in disciplinary cases, negotiate over their working conditions, and build our power over the industry.
All of our union's contracts provide access to affordable healthcare with extensive coverage. Learn more about the different healthcare plans available to eligible members and their families.
Union members are able to retire with dignity and security. Learn more about the union's pension benefits and 401(k) plan.
Union hotel and gaming jobs are great jobs. Every year, we organize many non-union hotels and casinos and transform the lives of the people who work there. Together, with our help, you can bring the union into your workplace too.
Union workers have the right to negotiate with their bosses over pretty much anything that affects them at work - from challenging unfair rules to demanding better wages, benefits, and working conditions. With the union, everything is negotiable, and that’s a great right for working people to have.
Without a union contract, your employer can fire you for almost any reason or no reason at all. Union workers have job security – from the right to a representative when being disciplined to the right to a fair hearing when facing termination. Not only that, our contracts protect the jobs of union workers from outsourcing, unfair layoffs, job loss during hotel sales or changes in management, short-staffing, new technology, and more.
For nearly a century, our union has been fighting for hospitality workers to earn enough to live the American dream. Today, most union hotel workers in New York City earn nearly $40 an hour - double what most hotel workers make without a union.
Union hotel and casino workers have high-quality, family healthcare, an employer-funded pension plan, access to free attorneys through our pre-paid legal fund, a college scholarship fund, and a free job training program.
