A Letter from HTC President Rich Maroko
December 31, 2025
2025: A year of success.
In the last 12 months, our union performed at the highest level in every area – from enforcing our contracts, to non-union organizing, to securing excellent contracts through tough negotiations, to political victories at the ballot box, to passing legislation that protects our members.
By far, the accomplishment that I’m proudest of is our member turnout, which shattered previous records. This year, you have taken our union’s power to the next level by showing up for our union. While creativity and strategy are important, member turnout fuels everything that we do.
Union participation soars to 8,000 member volunteers
In 2024, our union celebrated record-breaking turnout with thousands of members volunteering at union actions and attending union trainings. Our 2024 numbers were double those of years past. This year, in 2025, we surpassed that turnout by 60%, to over 8,000 member volunteers. At over 225 union events, our members rallied to celebrate improvements to unemployment benefits, protested and testified against attempts by Airbnb to roll back regulations, and knocked on doors to elect a new city government that will have our back in next year’s contract fight.
Another 1,000 members attended union trainings – from our multi-week delegate training program, to the “Protecting Union Power” training, to HEAT CAPTAIN trainings. These members learned how to better enforce our agreements, studied the leverage we use to negotiate contracts, and prepared to organize their coworkers ahead of the 2026 contract fight. In 2025, 465 members committed to lead as HEAT CAPTAINS and began assembling their HEAT TEAMS – work that will continue into 2026.
1,000 members attended union trainings
465 members committed to lead as HEAT Captains
2,800 grievances were resolved by union business agents
Vigilant contract enforcement
Across the region, our contract enforcement staff and 3,000 union delegates made sure that management lived up to our contracts. In grievance meetings, they reminded management on a daily basis that our members are tough, smart, and willing to stand up for what we deserve. Two thousand eight hundred grievances were resolved by our union’s business agents – and that doesn’t include the thousands of additional grievances resolved by our delegates. This year, our contract enforcement and legal teams reached 375 settlement agreements, prosecuted 150 cases in arbitration, and negotiated over 150 side agreements that supplement the contract.
Come January, we will be expanding the new system that we’ve created for tracking and enforcing grievances in the hotels – a mobile app we call Casebook. With beta testing complete, another team of Business Agents will begin using Casebook in early January. The app is one of a number of ongoing initiatives to help our union catch more violations and fix them faster.
We are protecting our union density
This year, our union organized non-union hotels and gaming facilities across the region, and we negotiated 18 full-shop contracts, including our 100th GRIWA at the Doubletree Newark Airport and a contract at the Hampton Inn Albany that brought the City of Albany to 100% density! This work builds on years of effort to protect our union density – the number of hotel rooms that are in union hotels versus non-union hotels. Density is key to our leverage in negotiations. Over a decade ago, when our union last went into bargaining for the IWA, we predicted that our density would drop to 53% by 2018. But going into bargaining in 2026, our union density in New York City is 69%.
How did we get from that prediction to 69%? First, by non-stop organizing. Our union has organized over 200 non-union properties since 2012. Equally important, we’ve been able to protect our density by using our political power. At the end of 2021, following years of effort, New York City adopted special permits legislation that stopped the dangerous overdevelopment of hotels in the city. This matters not just to the thousands of hotel and gaming workers who have become members of our union, but to all of our members because the higher a union’s density, the higher the wages they can win at the bargaining table.
A year of political action, and victories
Our members knocked on the doors of over 22,000 voters in the 2025 elections. Union-backed candidates won across the board. Your efforts during election season mean our union will have allies who we can count on to support us and walk our picket lines in the Mayor’s Office, City Hall, and the Governor’s Office. Not only that, but we will also have allies who we can count on to support legislation that protects our jobs and to block laws that would be dangerous to our members and working people alike.
NYC Mayor
Our union backed Zohran Mamdani in the New York City Mayor’s race. Just days after he won the primary, Mamdani came to our union’s headquarters to meet with our members, learn about the issues most important to us, and earn our endorsement. Over the next four months, our members knocked on doors for Mamdani, cheered him on outside of the mayoral debates and at Forest Hills Stadium, and joined him for discussions about NYC’s affordability crisis. Thanks in part to your efforts, we will have a Mayor who is unequivocal about his support for working people and leaves no question whose side he will be on if we find ourselves in a contract fight.
City Council
We were also exceptionally successful in elections for City Council. Thirty-six Council Members endorsed by our union won their primaries – representing a super majority in the Council. Plus, Council Member Julie Menin, who championed the Safe Hotels Act last year despite fierce opposition from the hotel industry, secured enough support to be the next Speaker of the City Council. The Speaker effectively determines what legislation can go for a vote, what gets passed, and what doesn’t. In Julie, we will have an absolute ally at City Hall.
New Jersey
Across the Hudson River in New Jersey, our members played a role in electing a number of union-backed candidates, most notably Governor-Elect Mikie Sherrill. Mikie Sherrill will lead the State when our regional contract, the GRIWA, expires in 2028 and she has already committed to support our union during any potential contract fight.
We also helped elect union-allies to office in Hoboken and Jersey City. Emily Jabbour will lead as the Mayor of Hoboken and James Solomon, as the Mayor of Jersey City. As a Jersey City Council Member, James Solomon backed strong regulations on Airbnb in Jersey City during a heated ballot measure in 2019. He has been a friend to our union ever since.
The efforts of union volunteers during election season translate into real political power. In 2025, we used that power to secure some very important legislative victories.
Huge boost to unemployment benefits
At our union’s urging, New York State made dramatic improvements to the unemployment system. In October, the weekly benefit increased by 75% – from a maximum benefit of $504/week to $869/week – and striking workers became eligible to collect unemployment benefits after just two weeks. The changes were announced just one year before our master contract in NYC expires and New York’s elected officials left no question about whose side they will be on if the hotel industry picks a fight with our union next summer. If forced to strike, these changes mean our members will be able to collect higher unemployment benefits and do so more quickly.
NYC began enforcing the Safe Hotels Act
New York City began enforcing the Safe Hotels Act this past May. Many of you turned out as the fight for the Safe Hotels Act turned into a proxy fight for the 2026 city-wide contract negotiations and became a test of our union’s political power. Management fought hard, spending millions to try and defeat the bill. Despite their fiercest efforts, we were successful in getting the law passed. As a result, New York City hotels now have to meet licensing requirements that include offering daily cleaning to guests, providing panic buttons and human trafficking training to workers, meeting minimum staffing levels, and not entering into new subcontracting agreements. By now, most NYC hotels have applied for and received licenses.
Airbnb-backed bills fail in City Council
In politics, we don’t just play offense. Sometimes, we play defense. For over 15 years, our union pushed to regulate how Airbnbs operate in New York City. We worked with state and local officials to pass a series of laws that prevent businesses and landlords from using New York City apartments to run de facto hotels – that take away homes from New Yorkers and threaten our members’ jobs – and we worked with elected officials to gradually increase the government’s enforcement power.
These efforts culminated with Local Law 18 in 2022, which requires hosts to register with the City and live up to the requirements of the law. As a result, the number of Airbnbs plunged by an estimated 90% in New York City. This fall, Airbnb poured millions into local elections, in an effort to roll back those regulations before Mayor-Elect Mamdani takes office and Council Member Julie Menin begins her role as Speaker. On December 18th, Intros 948 and 1107 failed to even be scheduled for a vote in committee. Make no mistake, the reason that these bills failed and strong regulations remain is in large part because you showed up.
We took our fight to the streets at the Surrey Hotel
Following the reopening of the Surrey Hotel at the end of 2024, we took our fight with the hotel’s new owner and operator public this past year. The hotel was purchased at a steep discount by overseas investors in 2020. Not satisfied with this bargain, the new owner and their management company, Corinthia, refuse to rehire the long-time union workers in what we consider a breach of New York City law. The former Surrey employees have filed a lawsuit, and the union has filed charges of discrimination for union activity with the National Labor Relations Board. This year, we sought to draw public attention by staging multiple rallies outside of the hotel – starting on the night of the Met Gala, to a boutique hotel conference in June, to a rally with Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani (who broadcast our fight to his over 1 million followers). The campaign to restore the rights and jobs of the former Surrey workers is sure to continue into 2026. However long it takes, we’ll be fighting until every one of them has the right to return.
Looking ahead to 2026
The gaming industry will create thousands of new union jobs
This December, three new casinos were granted licenses to offer live table games. The licenses will go to Resorts World NYC, where workers are already represented by our union, and will allow for the construction of two new casinos, a Hard Rock casino near Citi Field and Bally’s in the Bronx. All told, the casinos will create thousands of new union jobs - some of which will be as table games dealers.
In anticipation of these new jobs, the Industry-Training Program is offering free dealer trainings to members. Interested members can click here to sign up.
We'll be increasing member trainings
In addition to continuing our delegate trainings and bringing them to Westchester and Albany, we will be rolling out three new trainings in anticipation of the 2026 contract fight.
The first is a new member orientation that will teach our newest members the basics about the union – from how we’ve won the rights, pay, and benefits in our contracts, to how to raise grievances, to the roles of various staff at the union, to how to do their part to build our union’s power. We want to make sure our newest members join our efforts to create a strong union and stand shoulder to shoulder with their coworkers from day one.
We’re also launching a training for delegates and HEAT CAPTAINS on unfair labor practices – what they are, how to report them, and why they matter during bargaining as well as a picket captain training that will cover the basics of operating a tight and impactful picket line including how to collect strike and unemployment benefits, picket line do’s and don’ts, and the rights of guests under New York City’s consumer protection law.
We're drawing up boycott and corporate campaign strategies
While we hope to reach a fair contract with the hotel industry before our master contract expires, we’re taking every preparation in the event the industry forces us to strike. In addition to the work our HEAT CAPTAINS and organizers are doing to ready our membership, behind the scenes, our union’s team has already started identifying corporate vulnerabilities and preparing for boycotts around major New York City events next summer. We will incrementally turn up the heat on management in the coming months.
How to help
Our most important achievement this year was the dramatic increase in member engagement and participation. We need you to do it again in 2026. We all benefit from the rights, pay and benefits in this contract – and we all have a duty to protect it and do our part to put the union in the best possible bargaining position next year. So, keep turning out to union actions. Bring your coworkers with you. Attend the 2026 union trainings. Join (or lead!) a HEAT TEAM. When I walk into our New York City negotiations next year, I’ll be doing so with leverage and strength created by the efforts of so many of you. Thank you – and keep it up.
In Solidarity,
Rich Maroko
HTC President
NYC hotel workers:
Help guide the union’s priorities for the 2026 contract negotiations and future legislative campaigns by taking our NYC Member survey.