Strike by Marriott hotel workers leaves some guests grumbling

California visitor Ericka Kreeb was counting on a honeymoon in paradise when she splurged on the pricey Sheraton Maui and all the pampering that it entailed.

Instead, she found herself in the middle of a strike zone. No housekeeping. No towel service. No nightly turn-down. Limited on-property restaurant choices, especially for a vegetarian. No bar attendants to bring those cute tropical drinks with the little umbrellas to her chaise lounge by the pool.

What did she get? Undesired wake-up calls when picketing workers began chanting each morning. Guests’ trash in the hallways. Ants in the room.

“It smarts. I paid about $140 a night more to stay at the Sheraton Maui than some of our other choices only to get the most basic level of service. If I stayed at the Motel 6, they would clean up and take out the trash,” Kreeb said.

Kreeb, who left Hawaii on Thursday, is just one of the dozens of hotel guests lighting up social media with complaints as a strike involving 2,700 Marriott hotel workers in Hawaii enters its second week.

So far, there’s no end in sight for the strike, which began Oct. 8 when negotiations between Unite Here Local 5 and Kyo-ya Hotels & Resorts, which owns the Marriott-managed Sheraton Waikiki, The Royal Hawaiian, Westin Moana Surfrider, Sheraton Princess Kaiulani and Sheraton Maui, reached an impasse.

Workers are asking for a $3-an-hour wage increase in the first year, while Kyo-ya has offered a 70-cent increase to cover wages and benefits. The average union housekeeper makes just over $22 an hour.

The labor dispute also is causing division in the community and among current and potential tourists.

Local 5 said the strike has generated more than $80 million in media coverage, according to Critical Mention, a program that the union uses to track media coverage. Detailed guest accounts of strike-related disappointments are heating up on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TripAdvisor.

On the one hand, strikers have garnered strong support from other unions and from some Hawaii politicians, most notably Gov. David Ige’s administration as demonstrated by Chief of Staff Mike McCartney’s presence in the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani picket line Sunday.

Some visitors also have shown their support for the strike by joining picket lines, checking out of hotels or canceling future reservations.

While most of the negative publicity seems to be focused on Kyo-ya and Marriott, there’s a growing pool of visitors, especially those from out of state who arrived here unaware of the dispute, that are angry at workers.

One woman, who left a message for the Star-Advertiser, said she thought it was ridiculous that hotels were expected to pay housekeepers more than $50,000 a year for unskilled labor. The woman, who said she made less than the workers, said she resented them for ruining the vacation that she had saved for years to take.

Regardless of who is at fault, there’s little doubt that some visitors are leaving Hawaii unhappy. Craig Lyn-Overstreet, a visitor who lives in Boston and the United Kingdom, left some choice comments on Facebook after a recent visit to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.

Lyn-Overstreet said he wasn’t warned of the strike until after the hotel ran his credit card at check-in, where he was informed there would be no housekeeping services, no food service and no bar service.

“We were to leave towels and trash in hallway like some third-world hostel,” Lyn-Overstreet said. “No vacuuming was done, the hotel is in total shambles, filthy drapes. If you’re gonna use office staff to work a Luxury Collection Hotel, then train them correctly.”

Jack Richards, president and CEO of Pleasant Holidays, said he’s been getting 10 to 13 complaint calls since the strike started, but feels the real test will be how it affects the 2018 American Dental Association meeting.

The meeting, which is Oahu’s largest citywide event of the year, is slated to run from Thursday to Monday and is expected to draw over 15,000 registrants from 46 countries.

“That’s a lot of people descending on Hawaii,” Richards said. “There’s nothing good about this strike continuing, and it’s only going to get worse over time.”

Kyo-ya and Marriott did not respond to the Star-Advertiser’s request for comment Monday. Kreeb said they aren’t being responsive to guests, either.

“I feel for the workers. If this is how the company treats paying guests, I don’t know how well they are listening to the workers,” she said.

Not very well, according to workers, who continued to walk the picket lines Monday. Some exhibited even more vigor in the wake of Kyo-ya’s decision Friday to cite for trespassing three Sheraton Maui workers who were passing out informational leaflets about the strike to guests in the hotel’s porte-cochere.

Union workers said they will continue to educate the public about their strike by marching around the island through Monday. Today they’ll wave signs on Kamehameha Highway in front of Turtle Bay Resort, which is one of the Local 5 union hotels that is not on strike.