If you have recently stayed in a major hotel, you will know that the rooms have become extraordinarily luxurious. A down comforter, five or six down pillows, and an extra-soft mattress cover have become standard features. The rooms invite sweet dreams, but they are a nightmare for the housekeepers who clean them each day. The "amenities arms race" has dramatically increased their workload and their injury rate.

Since 2002 when the battle of the beds began, the incidence of arm, shoulder, and lower-back injuries has skyrocketed. But most housekeepers do not receive health insurance from their employer, and according to the New York Times, their annual pay averages only slightly more than $17,000. So what’s a hard working housekeeper to do? Many of them are finding the best way to gain a greater voice on the job, higher pay, and even health insurance is to join a union.

The UCC and hotel workers in Hartford, Conn.

The UCC has played a small but very important role in the nationwide struggle by hotel workers to form unions. Read about the workers and how a their struggle in Hartford, Conn., led the UCC Executive Council to change the location of General Synod 26.

Hotel Workers Rising   Learn more about the Hotel Workers Rising campaign