Hotel Workers' Union Gets First Woman President

The leading union for U.S. hotel workers has elected its first woman president ever, a big moment for a labor group that represents thousands of housekeepers across the country.

Gwen Mills’ rise to the top of Unite Here caps a long career inside the union, from her early years as an organizer battling Yale University in Connecticut to a more recent stint running Unite Here’s political ground game against Donald Trump in the swing state of Nevada. The union’s delegates tapped Mills to lead them in a vote held Friday in New York City at its quinquennial constitutional convention.

She acknowledged her election was a landmark for a powerful union that happens to be made up primarily of women, many of them immigrants.

“I think it’s an important moment for our members,” Mills said, noting that women now lead some of the largest unions, as well as the AFL-CIO labor federation. “I feel rather humbled to join a group of trailblazing union leaders who are women.”

Mills has been running the union on an interim basis since her longtime predecessor, D. Taylor, stepped down at the end of March. She takes over during a challenging but hopeful time.

Despite the strong economic recovery, Unite Here has not fully recouped its membership losses since the COVID-19 pandemic prompted hotels and airlines to lay off workers and change the way they operate. The union had around 265,000 members last year, still down from above 300,000 before the pandemic, according to the union’s annual reports.

Yet many workplaces are clearly ripe for organizing right now, with labor breaking through at name-brand companies like Starbucks and Trader Joe’s, as well as the National Labor Relations Board reporting a sustained increase in union election