Since Fatima Amahmoud has to clean up to 17 rooms per shift, her job at the Moxy Hotel in downtown Boston sometimes seems impossible.

One time she found three days of blond dog hair on the curtains, the bedspread and the carpet. She knew she would not be able to finish in the 30 minutes she was supposed to allocate to each room. The dog owner had refused daily room cleaning, an option that many hotels promote as environmentally friendly, but for her it is a way to save on labor costs and to cope with the labor shortage since the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, unionized housekeepers have fought a bitter battle to restore automatic daily room cleaning at large hotel chains that are faced with an unmanageable workload or, in many cases, with fewer hours and a drop in income.

The dispute has become a symbol of frustration over Working conditions among hotel workers who were unemployed for months during pandemic-related closures and returned to an industry struggling with chronic staff shortages and changing travel trends.

About 10,000 hotel employees, represented by the Union UNITE HERE Twenty-four hotels in eight cities, including Honolulu, Boston, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego and Seattle, walked out on Sunday. Hotel workers in other cities may strike in the coming days as labor negotiations have stalled over demands for higher wages and a reversal of service and staff cuts. In total, 15,000 workers voted to strike.

“We have told the manager many times that this is too much for us,” says Amahmoud, whose hotel is among those whose employees have approved a strike but have not yet walked out.

Michael D’Angelo, Hyatt’s director of labor relations in the Americas, said the company’s hotels have contingency plans in place to minimize the impact of the strikes. “We are disappointed that UNITE HERE has chosen to strike while Hyatt remains willing to negotiate,” he said.

In a statement before the strikes began, Hilton said it was “committed to negotiating in good faith to reach fair and reasonable agreements.” Marriott and Omni did not respond to requests for comment.

The labor unrest is a reminder of how much the pandemic has burdened low-wage women, particularly black and Hispanic women, who are overrepresented in service jobs. Although women have largely returned to work after bearing the brunt of furloughs during the pandemic — or dropping out to Care responsibility — that recovery is a Gap in employment rates between women with and without university degrees.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. hotel industry employs about 1.9 million people, 196,000 fewer than in February 2019. According to federal statistics, nearly 90% of housekeepers in the buildings are women.

It is a workforce that relies predominantly According to UNITE HERE, the focus is on women of color, many of whom are immigrants, and is geared more towards the older age group.

Union leader Gwen Mills describes the collective bargaining as part of long-standing struggle to ensure that service employees receive family-sustaining remuneration at the level of traditionally male-dominated industries.

“Hospitality work as a whole is undervalued and it is no coincidence that this work is disproportionately done by women and people of color,” Mills said.

The union hopes for his recent success in Southern Californiawhere, after repeated strikes, it won significant wage increases, higher employer pension contributions and guarantees of a fair workload in a new contract with 34 hotels. According to the contract, chambermaids in most hotels will earn $35 an hour by July 2027.

According to the American Hotel And Lodging Association, 80 percent of member hotels complain about staff shortages, and 50 percent cite housekeeping as their most pressing staffing need.

Kevin Carey, interim president and CEO of the association, says hotels are doing everything they can to attract workers. According to surveys conducted by the association, 86 percent of hoteliers have increased wages in the past six months.

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

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

Maria Mata, 61, a housekeeper at the W Hotel in San Francisco, says she makes $2,190 every two weeks when she works full time, but some weeks she only gets calls one or two days, causing her to max out her credit card to pay for household expenses.

“At my age, it’s hard to look for a new job. I just have to keep the faith that we can do this,” Mata said.

Guests at the Hilton Hawaiian Village often tell Nely Reinante that they don’t want their rooms cleaned because they don’t want her to work too much. She says she takes every opportunity to explain that declining her services means more work for the housekeepers.

Since the pandemic, UNITE HERE has reinstated automated daily housekeeping at some hotels in Honolulu and other cities, either through contract negotiations, complaint filings or local government ordinances.

But the issue is back on the table in many hotels whose contracts are expiring. Mills said UNITE HERE is seeking language that would make it harder for hotels to tacitly persuade their guests to forgo daily housekeeping.

The US hotel industry recovered from the pandemic despite average occupancy rates below 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 $101.84 in 2024, according to the hotel association.

David Sherwyn, director of the Center for Innovative Hospitality Labor and Employment Relations at Cornell University, said that while UNITE HERE is a strong union, it faces an uphill battle over daily room cleaning as hotels view reducing service offerings as part of a long-term budget and staffing strategy.

“Hotels say the guests don’t want this, I can’t find the people and it’s a huge cost,” Sherwyn said. “That’s the struggle.”

Workers are outraged by the measures, which they see as an attempt to squeeze even more out of them while they have to cope with irregular hours and low pay. While unionized housekeepers tend to earn more, pay varies widely from city to city.

Chandra Anderson, 53, makes $16.20 an hour as a housekeeper at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore Inner Harbor, where employees have not yet voted on a strike. She is hoping for a union contract that will raise her hourly wage to $20, but says the company made her a counteroffer that “felt like a slap in the face.”

Anderson, who has been the sole breadwinner for her household since her husband began dialysis, said they had to move to a smaller home a year ago, in part because she couldn’t put in enough hours at her job. Since the hotel reinstated daily housekeeping earlier this year, things have improved, but she still struggles to afford basic necessities like food.

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

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

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This story has been updated to correct that Unite Here now says workers are striking at 24 hotels, not 25.

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Associated Press writer Jennifer Kelleher in Honolulu contributed to this article.

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