Hotel workers in Maryland and across the United States are striking for higher wages and fairer work hours.

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More than 10,000 workers at 25 hotels across the U.S. went on strike Monday, choosing the Labor Day weekend as an opportunity to escalate their demands for higher wages, more equitable workloads and a reversal of budget cuts enacted during the COVID pandemic.

UNITE HERE, a union representing striking cleaners and other hospitality workers, said 200 employees at the Hilton Baltimore Inner Harbor were the latest to walk off the job.

Nearly half of the striking workers — 5,000 — are in Honolulu. That includes Briana Canencia, a waitress for more than a decade at the Marriott, who said she has been on the picket line fighting not only for higher pay but also for respect amid reduced hours and increased workloads.

Canencia, who is a native Hawaiian, said she works a second job to support her two children, yet they live paycheck to paycheck. She said she worries her family will soon be “priced out of paradise.”

“It’s very important to me to be able to raise my children here and introduce them to their ancestral home because our blood is here, our family is here,” she said. “We deserve to be here.”

Thousands of workers are also striking in Boston, San Francisco, Seattle, San Diego and San Jose, Calif. The strikes targeting Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt hotels were expected to last one to three days.

The UNITE HERE union said a total of 15,000 workers voted to authorize the strike, which could soon expand to other cities, including New Haven, Connecticut, Oakland, California, and Providence, Rhode Island.

Union president Gwen Mills says the strikes are part of a long-standing fight to ensure service workers earn a living wage comparable to that in industries traditionally dominated by men.

“Hospitality work is generally undervalued, and it’s no coincidence that it’s disproportionately held by women and people of color,” Mills said.

Alma Navarro, 60, has been a waitress in San Jose for more than half her life. Her body moves more slowly than it used to. That’s one reason she says she wasn’t afraid to leave work this weekend.

“It wasn’t hard, honestly, because I know we need change,” she said. For Navarro, who works at Hilton, that means better health care, a fair wage and higher employer contributions to her pension.

If those changes aren’t included in the new contract, she fears she won’t be able to retire or even see a doctor if she gets sick or injured, which has happened several times in recent years. If Navarro isn’t scheduled to work at least 80 hours a month, she’ll lose her health insurance.

“Whenever I don’t have insurance,” she said, “I just pray to God, ‘Please don’t let me get sick this month.’”

Union cleaners want to bring back automated daily room cleanings at major hotel chains, saying they have been saddled with unmanageable workloads or, in many cases, fewer hours and falling revenues. Many hotels cut services during the coronavirus pandemic and never brought them back.

However, hotels say guests are no longer asking for daily room cleaning and some other services.

Hyatt and Hilton said Monday they have contingency plans to minimize the impact of the strikes at their hotels. Marriott did not respond to a request for comment.

Michael D’Angelo, Hyatt’s head of labor relations for the Americas, said in a statement Monday that the chain offers competitive wages and benefits, including in markets where workers are striking.

“We are disappointed that UNITE HERE has chosen to strike while Hyatt remains willing to negotiate,” D’Angelo said. “We look forward to continuing to negotiate fair contracts and recognizing the contributions of Hyatt employees.”

Hilton said through a spokesperson that it remains “committed to negotiating in good faith to reach fair and reasonable agreements that benefit both our valued team members and our hotels.”

UNITE HERE hopes to replicate its recent success in Southern California, where after repeated strikes it won significant wage increases, increased employer contributions to pensions and fair workload guarantees in a new contract with 34 hotels. Under the agreement, cleaners at most hotels will earn $35 an hour by July 2027.

The victories add to what the food workers union, UNITE HERE Nevada, called the “best contracts ever” for tens of thousands of hotel and casino workers on the Las Vegas Strip, which include a 32 percent pay increase over five years, reduced cleaning workloads and improved workplace safety due to advances in technology and artificial intelligence.

Dee-Ann Durbin is an AP business reporter.

Associated Press writer Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this article.