New York hotel workers union reaches deal to avoid strike ahead of World Cup

A deal between a New York hotel union and an hospitality industry group is set to boost the earnings of hotel housekeepers to more than $100,000, as part of a pact to avoid threatened strike action during the Fifa World Cup beginning in June . The eight-year contract agreement between the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council – representing 27,000 hotel workers – and the Hotel Association of New York City, which represents 250 hotels, establishes 50% wage raises along with free family healthcare, increased pension contributions, new benefit funds and expanded rights at work, union officials said. The terms of the deal were announced on Monday, on the same day that unions representing Long Island railroad workers called off a strike that had for three days crippled the rail transport system into the city. The hotel workers’ deal will raise the housekeepers’ pay of nearly $40 an hour to more than $61 hourly over eight years. “Wage increases were our primary focus in this contract cycle because the cost of living for our members has been increasing so dramatically,” the union’s president, Rich Maroko, told the New York Times. The hotel association’s president, Vijay Dandapani, said in a statement to the Guardian that his group was “proud the New York hotel industry will continue to provide the best pay and benefits in the country”. But Dandapani also cautioned that the group’s members were facing “tremendous economic headwinds” and exceptionally high taxes. …