With up to 17 rooms to clean each shift, Fatima Amahmoud’s job at the Moxy hotel in downtown Boston sometimes feels impossible.

There was the time she found three days worth of blond dog fur clinging to the curtains, the bedspread and the carpet. She knew she wouldn’t finish in the 30 minutes she is supposed to spend on each room. The dog owner had declined daily room cleaning, an option that many hotels have encouraged as environmentally friendly but is a way for them to cut labor costs and cope with worker shortages since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Unionized housekeepers, however, have waged a fierce fight to restore automatic daily room cleaning at major hotel chains, saying they have been saddled with unmanageable workloads, or in many cases, fewer hours and a decline in income.

The dispute over daily housekeeping has become emblematic of the frustration over working conditions among hotel workers, who were thrown out of their jobs for months during pandemic-era shutdowns and returned to a changed industry grappling with chronic staffing shortages and evolving travel trends.

More than 40,000 workers, represented by the UNITE HERE union, have been locked in difficult contract negotiations with major hotel chains including Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott and Omni over demands for higher wages and a reversal of COVID-19-era service and staffing cuts. At least 15,000 workers have so far voted to authorize strikes this fall if no agreements are reached after contracts expire at hotels in 12 cities, from Honolulu to Boston.

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The first of the strikes began Sunday, when more than 1,000 workers walked off the job for three days at four hotels in Boston and one in Greenwich, Connecticut, UNITE HERE said.

The labor unrest serves as a reminder of the COVID-19 pandemic’s disproportionate and lingering toll on low-wage women, especially Black and Hispanic women who are overrepresented in front-facing service jobs. Although women have largely returned to the workforce since bearing the brunt of pandemic-era furloughs — or dropping out to take on caregiving responsibilities — that recovery has masked a gap in employment rates between women with college degrees and those without.

The U.S. hotel industry employs about 1.9 million people, some 196,000 fewer workers than in February 2019, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The American Hotel And Lodging Association says 80% of its member hotels report staffing shortages, and 50% cite housekeeping as their most critical hiring need.

It’s a workforce that relies overwhelmingly on women of color, many of them immigrants, and which skews older, according to UNITE HERE. Nearly 90% of building housekeepers are women, according to federal statistics.

“We said many times to the manager that it is too much for us,” said Amahmoud, whose hotel was among those where workers have authorized a strike but have not yet walked out.

UNITE HERE President Gwen Mills characterizes the contract negotiations as part of long-standing battle to secure family-sustaining compensation for service workers on par with more traditionally male-dominated industries.

“Hospitality work overall is undervalued, and it’s not a coincidence that it’s disproportionately women and people of color doing the work,” Mills said.

The union is hoping to build on its recent success in southern California, where it won significant wage hikes, increased employer contributions to pensions, and fair workload guarantees in a new contract with 34 hotels after engaging in repeated strikes. Under that contract, housekeepers at most hotels will earn $35 an hour by July 2027.

Kevin Carey, the interim president and CEO of the hotel association, says hotels are doing all they can to attract workers. According to the association’s surveys, 86% of hoteliers have increased wages over the past six months and many have offered more flexibility with hours or expanded benefits. The association says wages for hotel workers have risen 26% since the pandemic.

“Now is a fantastic time to be a hotel employee,” Carey said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press.

Hotel workers say the reality on the ground is more complicated.

Maria Mata, 61, a housekeeper at the W Hotel in San Francisco, said she earns $2,190 every two weeks if she gets to work full time. But some weeks, she only gets called in one or two days, forcing her to max out her credit card to pay for food and other expenses for her household, which includes her granddaughter and elderly mother.

“It’s hard to look for a new job a my age. I just have to keep the faith that we will work this out,” said Mata, whose hotel has so far not voted to authorized a strike.

At the Hilton Hawaiian Village, Nely Reinante said guests often tell her they don’t need their rooms cleaned because they don’t want her to work too hard. She said she seizes every opportunity to explain that turning down her services only makes more work for housekeepers.

Sometimes if a guest refuses, she’ll suggest just taking out their trash or cleaning the bathroom.

At least 5,000 workers at seven hotels in Honolulu, including the Hilton Hawaiian Village, have voted to authorize strikes.

Since the pandemic, UNITE HERE has won back automatic daily room cleaning in Honolulu and other cities, either through contract negotiations, grievance filings or local government ordinances.

But the issue is back on the table at many hotels where contracts are expiring. Mills said UNITE HERE is striving for tighter language to make it difficult for hotels to quietly encourage guests to opt out of daily cleaning.

In a statement, Hilton said it was “committed to negotiating in good faith to reach fair and reasonable agreements.” Hyatt said it was “optimistic that mutually beneficial agreements can be reached without strikes.” Marriott and Omni did not return requests for comments.

The U.S. hotel industry has rebounded from the pandemic despite average occupancy rates that remain shy of 2019 levels, largely due to higher room rates and record guest spending per room. Average revenue per available room, a key metric, is expected to reach a record high of $101.84 in 2024, according the hotel association.

David Sherwyn, the director of the Cornell University Center for Innovative Hospitality Labor & Employment Relations, said UNITE HERE is a strong union but faces a tough fight over daily room cleaning because hotels consider reducing services part of a long-term strategy to cope with rising costs and the persistent labor shortage.

“The hotels are saying the guests don’t want it, I can’t find the people and it’s a huge expense,” Sherwyn said. “That’s the battle.”

Workers bristle at what they consider a strategy that squeezes more out of them as they cope with erratic schedules and low pay. While unionized housekeepers tend to make higher wages, pay varies widely between cities.

Chandra Anderson, 53, makes $16.20 an hour as a housekeeper at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore Inner Harbor, where workers have not yet voted to strike. She is hoping for a contract that will raise her hourly pay to $20 but says that the company came back with a counter offer that “felt like a slap in the face.”

Anderson, who has been the sole breadwinner in her household since her husband went on dialysis, said they had to move to a smaller and more affordable house a year ago in part because she wasn’t able to get enough hours at her job. Things have improved since the hotel reinstated daily room cleaning earlier this year, but she still struggles to afford basics like groceries.

Tracy Lingo, president of UNITE HERE Local 7, said the Baltimore members are seeking pensions for the first time but the biggest priority is bringing hourly wages closer to those in other cities.

“That’s how far behind we are,” Lingo said.

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Associated Press Writer Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this story.

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