BOSTON -- Four hundred Boston hotel workers went on strike Thursday morning, following an initial wave of three-day strikes around Labor Day.

UNITE HERE Local 26 said the latest strikes are affecting operations at Moxy Boston Downtown, The Newbury Boston, W Boston Hotel, and The Dagny. Those walking off the job include room attendants, front desk agents, doorpersons, cooks and dishwashers.

The effort is intended to bring attention to concerns over the blend of high hotel rates and profits, arduous working conditions, low wages, and stalled contract talks. The union warned Thursday that more strikes are possible at any time, and released a labor dispute map while urging guests "not to eat, sleep, or meet at any hotel in Boston or nationally that is on strike."

Carlos Aramayo, president of UNITE HERE Local 26, said Thursday that the union and the hotel companies "are still far apart on strike issues including raises, workloads, and COVID-era cuts."

"I'm on strike because I need higher wages to pay my bills and support my daughters through college. It's also really important that I maintain my health insurance and make sure I have a pension that will enable me to retire with dignity," Alicia Cacho, a front desk agent at The Newbury Boston, said in a statement released by the union. "Going on strike is a difficult thing to do, but I'm thinking about my family's future in the long term. The hotel owners know how hard we work and how expensive it is to live in Boston."

The local Labor Day strikes involved 900 employees and occurred at Hilton Park Plaza, Hilton Boston Logan Airport, Hampton Inn & Homewood Suites at the Hilton Seaport, and Fairmont Copley Plaza. Nationally, more than 10,000 workers from 24 hotel properties in nine cities have recently gone on strike, the local union said, but most have returned to work.

A union spokeswoman told the News Service that current plans are for the Boston strikes to continue until 11 p.m. Saturday.