More than one hundred workers are on strike at the Omni Hotel in New Haven.
It's part of a national wave of hotel workers strikes. Hotel workers at the Greenwich Hyatt held a three-day strike earlier this month and are continuing to negotiate.
The Omni workers are members of Local 217 of Unite Here, the national union representing hotel workers across the country. They are fighting for better wages, health coverage and pensions, and for fair staffing in the post-Covid industry, where many services have not been restored.
Carla Valati lives in New Haven and has been a guest room attendant at the Omni for the past nine years. She said she's seen some changes since the hotel reopened after the pandemic eased.
“I feel like we're much busier than we were before Covid in the off-season,” Valati said. “We haven't had an off-season. So the hotel has been making very good profits, but we haven't been profiting from it; we are in the same place we were pre-Covid.”
Velati said her rent has gone up and she'd love to buy a home, but that's an impossible dream with the wages she makes.
The union said the strike is open-ended and the two sides are far apart, with negotiations continuing.
Hotel management declined to comment.