Well, this sounds awfully tempting.
If it wasn’t for the commute, I might almost damn near go for it.
ALMOST
N.Y.C. Hotel Housekeepers Will Earn Over $100,000 Under New Contract
‘Unusually generous terms’?
Oh. I’d say so.
The average pay of housekeepers in New York City hotels will increase to more than $100,000 a year as part of a contract settlement between an industry trade group and a powerful union. The deal, which the group ratified on Monday, averts a threatened strike this summer that could have disrupted the influx of tourists expected for the World Cup and America 250 festivities.
The owners of nearly 250 hotels in the city reached an agreement with the union, the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, on an eight-year contract that would increase wages by more than 50 percent for workers, union officials said. The hotel owners will continue to pay the full cost of providing health-care benefits for 27,000 union members and their families.
The unusually generous terms were ratified by the board of the Hotel Association of New York City, which represents the hotel owners, and is scheduled for a vote Thursday by the members of the hotel workers’ union, who have a history of moving in lock step with their leaders. The hotel workers’ union said that its new contract would raise the pay of housekeepers from slightly below $40 an hour to more than $61 an hour by 2034.
They make ‘slighty below $40 hr’ NOW?!
Holy SCHAMOLY
But hang on – that’s not all, folks.
But that’s just base wages.
Add in:
• Frequent overtime at 1.5x (very common during peaks… many cleaners rely on it)
• 100% employer-paid family healthcare (one of the priciest in NYC)
• Pension increases + new housing/childcare subsidies
• Taxes, workers’ comp, uniforms,…— WestHarlm (@WestHarlm) May 19, 2026
…• Taxes, workers’ comp, uniforms, legal friction
True all-in cost to hotels? Easily $85–$100+ per hour.
Sadly, this just supercharges the race to automate. These jobs won’t survive in their current form. They pushed too hard… and the “smack” is coming from economics, not billionaires. Most hotel ownership is middle/upper-middle class retirement accounts.
Yeah. It’s unsustainable.
I get that the city is expensive – we all know that. It’s a given.
But it’s also a given that a member of the housecleaning staff, whatever the venue, is not a $100K+ a year gig. It’s not.
And for an industry claiming it’s facing ‘tremendous headwinds,’ why on earth would they hamstring themselves like this unless the threat of a strike like the one in Los Angeles earlier had them so spooked they gave away the farm to avoid it.
Especially with FIFA coming to town, which might very well wind up being a huge bust of its own.
…“We are proud the New York hotel industry will continue to provide the best pay and benefits in the country,” said Vijay Dandapani, the hotel association’s president. But he added that the association’s members are facing “tremendous economic headwinds” and exceptionally high taxes, along with the loss of 20,000 hotel rooms since the coronavirus pandemic and demand for rooms that still has not fully recovered since Covid devastated tourism in the city.
Steadily rising labor expenses are likely to translate into higher costs for visitors to the city, said Didio Pequeno, a director of hospitality market analytics for CoStar Group, a research firm. “They’re going to try to offset that by raising rates,” he said.
But how successful they would be is unclear, given that New York City already has the highest average room rates of any big city in the United States, at about $335 a night, Mr. Pequeno said. In the past year, New York hotels have also had the nation’s highest occupancy rate, at about 84 percent, he said.
The agreement between the hotel workers and the industry comes about six weeks before the expiration of the current 14-year contract. For more than a year, union officials had been preparing for a strike in early July, just before the celebration of the 250th birthday of the United States and the final of FIFA’s World Cup tournament at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
I can’t imagine what a room in Mamdani’s city will set you back in, say, three years, as this kicks in, and I certainly am confused how it will ‘Help Save NYC Hotels.’
Seems counterintuitive.
…Mr. Maroko said that the deal included the largest wage increases and benefits in the union’s history, which spans nearly 100 years.
“This contract will deliver life-changing financial stability to the 30,000 hotel workers who are the backbone of the hospitality industry,” he said.
The proposed contract is longer and offers better financial terms than the union’s last contract, which started in 2012 as a seven-year deal that included annual pay raises of 3.5 to 4 percent. Although that contract was already substantially longer than most labor pacts, the union and the hotel association extended it a few years later for an additional seven years.
New York’s hotel industry has been complaining about being squeezed by inflation, taxes, “unnecessary construction and operation regulations.” In April, it launched a $500,000 ad campaign titled “Save NYC Hotels.”
Workers of the World, Unite!
The contract increases housekeeper salaries by over 50% by 2034, which would be $126,880 gross and the full health benefits could be as high as 60K by then.
This feels unsustainable.
— Highlight Bias (@HighlightBias) May 19, 2026
Until you drive all the jobs away because that automation is coming, and these contracts are driving it faster.
After destroying entertainment industry and Hollywood, Marxist democrats are on the path to kill leisure and travel industry. https://t.co/XB013KriRH
— BCHABC/BCHSV-are-scams (@fairness2all) May 19, 2026
…Together we called on FIFA and KSE, the owner of Sofi Stadium, to demand that ICE play no role in the World Cup. Already, workers’ rights and privacy are being violated by the agency that has been actively terrorizing the communities of this labor union’s workers.
Also included in their demands are fair pay and working conditions, free from the threat of losing their jobs to automation and AI. I stand with them in all of their asks.
Today’s event yet again highlights the need for a governor who will stand between Californians and growing corporate greed and billionaire interests that are reaping windfall profits off the back of working families. We must have a governor who will fight for working people and stand between them and the criminal organization ICE
And this comment did offer up an interesting comparison.
Where are all the people bitching that high skilled LIRR labor were overpaid for what they do? That they didn’t deserve that much? This is more money than a conductor makes. I’m happy for them, but where’s the outrage from the people who don’t understand regional cost of living?
— ᘜᖇİᗴTᗩ 😂🎶 🇺🇸 (@ThatGrieta) May 19, 2026
What he’s referring to is the striking Long Island Railroad workers who walked out Saturday morning.
Commuters are snorting fire not only because the LIRR is the main transportation into the city for hundreds of thousands of workers every day, but now that they’ve gone on strike, some particulars about their wage disputes are emerging and…well…let’s say dimming some of the sympathy some of the commuters were feeling for the five unions on strike.
Nearly a dozen Long Island Rail Road workers are hauling in more than $200,000 a year in overtime alone — a mind-boggling figure that rivals Gov. Kathy Hochul’s entire salary.
The transit arm’s latest payroll records reveal that a slew of its unionized workers — whose strike is wreaking havoc on the metro area’s hard-working masses — are personally striking gold at the taxpayers’ expense.
More than 325 Long Island Rail Road workers are raking in over $100,000 a year in overtime on top of their lucrative salaries, with 11 of them netting at least twice that huge figure in OT.
Overtime costs account for a staggering 22% of the LIRR’s payroll, noted Ken Girardin, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute think tank.
“Gov. Kathy Hochul needs to use the bully pulpit and explain why the LIRR shouldn’t cave,’’ Girardin told The Post on Sunday, referring to the MTA’s contentious contract talks with five LIRR unions repping thousands of workers.
“She can start by talking about how, thanks to inefficient union contracts, the LIRR had 11 employees last year collect over $200,000 each in overtime,” Girardin said.
“The LIRR workers are already the best-compensated transit workers in the United States,” he said.
And the unions want backdated pay raises for three years, along with wage bumps.
The word ‘unsustainable’ springs to mind again.
But, to the comment’s point – if a hotel maid is eventually going to clear $127K, what is a train engineer worth?
Everything is totally out of whack in the blue-state, blue-city models.
So now that hotel housekeepers will make more that $100K, look for NYC hotel rooms to be even more unaffordable. A $600 3-star room will also carry 30% in state and city taxes. Conventions are already looking elsewhere.
— Bob Bro (@BobBron1) May 19, 2026
It’s only going to get worse as the inflationary cycle drives more businesses and residents out who can’t afford the cost of living and the cost of making a living there, and visitors stop coming.
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