Hotel Workers
Our union's master contract in New York City is the best contract in the world for hotel workers.
Nearly 30,000 workers across 250 New York City hotels work under our union's Industry-Wide Agreement.
This contract is decades in the making, with the first Industry-Wide Agreement ("IWA") signed in 1939. Today, a union room attendant makes $42.37 per hour, has free family healthcare, and has an employer-funded pension – not to mention, unmatched rights on the job including scheduling rights, fair workloads, health and safety protections, and extra pay.
In May 2026, our union renegotiated the IWA. The IWA was already considered the best contract in the world for hotel workers. The 2026 IWA goes even further – delivering the biggest wage increases in our union’s history (more than 2.5x the average increases in the last contract), maintaining free family healthcare, increasing pension contributions, providing new benefit funds to address rising costs in housing and child care, protecting our members’ jobs, improving paid time off, expanding our members’ rights at work, and strengthening our already unparalleled ability to enforce the contract – all without a single giveback.
A life-changing contract
On May 21, 2026, thousands of union members voted to ratify the 2026 Industry-Wide Agreement. This contract, this victory, belongs to the hotel workers of NYC.
“This has changed my world. I had prostate cancer two years ago, and without the union I wouldn't have had the money to support the healthcare," said Adam Wesner, a Front Desk Agent at a Times Square hotel. "This contract is the best ever. I mean, I'm shocked and amazed that we were able to get above and beyond what anyone could have thought about, dreamed about. The determination, the people, the energy, the atmosphere. It's a dream come true.”
Union participation soars to 8,000 member volunteers
Member turnout fuels everything that we do.
By attending union trainings, showing up to union rallies, and volunteering before or after their shifts to get out the vote for pro-union candidates, our members have taken our union's power to the next level.
In 2025, our union celebrated record-breaking turnout, with over 8,000 members volunteering.
A political powerhouse
Our union has repeatedly fought for – and won – innovative laws that protect consumers and workers in New York City.
The Safe Hotels Act offers unprecedented protections for hotel workers, the public, and guests. The law requires New York City hotels to become licensed in order to operate and gives city officials enforcement powers to make sure that hotels meet basic cleanliness standards and satisfy common-sense safety requirements. The law also stops hotels with 100 rooms or more from entering into new contracts with subcontracting agencies for housekeeping and front desk.
Our union was able to pass this law against enormous, well-funded opposition because hundreds of HTC members showed up to fight for these protections.
Our union worked with New York State elected officials to make dramatic improvements to unemployment in 2025 – increasing the maximum weekly benefit by nearly 75% and reducing the waiting period for striking workers to the shortest wait in the nation.
These improvements will provide direct support to HTC members if management forces us to strike and send a clear, unequivocal message to the hotel industry: “Albany has our back.”
Airbnb is a direct threat to our members’ jobs and the communities where they live. Our union has fought for reasonable restrictions on short-term rentals and platforms like Airbnb. We’ve sounded the alarm at massive rallies and City Hall hearings, in media interviews and politicians’ offices: short-term rentals threaten layoffs across the hotel industry and worsen New York City's housing crisis.
After years of advocacy from tenants, community activists, and hotel workers, Airbnb listings in NYC are down by 92% – returning tens of thousands of apartments to the housing market.
The story of the first contract
In 1939, New York City hotel workers signed the first IWA. The first IWA was not won easily. It was the result of a series of strikes and organizing drives over multiple of decades, launched by brave workers who were determined to put an end to poverty wages and exploitative working conditions in the hotel industry.
"If I were asked to summarize what we accomplished on January 18, 1939, I would say that above all, with the signing of the first contract, we brought dignity to one of the most depressed and exploited categories of workers."
– JAY RUBIN, Former HTC President