Jun. 15, 2005 - With a strike sign resting on her shoulder, Gloria Sanchez, who cleaned rooms at the Congress Hotel for four years before her union struck two years ago, slowly walked 25 steps up and 25 back in front of the hotel Tuesday.

Then she turned and did it again, as she has done for at least five hours a day, five days a week for the last two years, an effort that has earned her $200 a week strike pay. That, she said, is about $100 less than she was earning before the strike.

Her walk grew longer Tuesday as hundreds of union members and community activists joined the line, marking the second anniversary of the strike against the once-grand, 112-year-old hotel.

With mariachis playing at one end of the line and drummers pounding away at the other, the pickets filled the street in front of the 850-room hotel, which looks out onto Grant Park.

Except for the music, shouting and longer-than-usual line of pickets, however, not much has changed since the first day of the strike, according to officials from the hotel and Unite Here, the union for the striking workers. And neither side is ready to give in.

The union's 130 workers struck after the hotel declared an impasse in negotiations, cut workers wages by 7 percent, froze contributions to their health-care coverage and warned that it might contract out their jobs.

"The fact that we are out here after two years is a sign of our strength," said Henry Tamarin, president of Local 1 of Unite Here. "If the hotel's owners cared about the quality of the hotel and its service, then they would have settled long ago."

But Peter Andjelkovich, an attorney for the hotel, said the owners could not "accede to the union's demands. They [the owners] have made substantial improvements, and they won't allow the union to put them out of business."

Because of the hotel's age and size and other issues, it could not accept the contract that the union reached in 2002 with other Chicago-area hotels, he said. In that four-year agreement, the union won an 11.5 percent annual hike in workers' wages and benefits.

Instead, his client needs a contract for "second-tier" hotels like itself, Andjelkovich said.

But that's unreasonable, said union spokeswoman Clare Fauke. "The work is the same if someone is cleaning a room here or another hotel," she said.

By the union's count, 23 members have crossed picket lines. The hotel says 31 workers have done so.

About 70 workers have kept up the daily picketing, though most of them have also found part-time or full-time jobs, according to the union.

By the union's estimate, the hotel has lost over $46.2 million in the last two years. The union got that figure largely by comparing the hotel's occupancy rate with the situation citywide, officials said. The union put the hotel's occupancy rate at 35 percent as compared to 70 percent for hotels across the city.

Andjelkovich would not say how much the hotel has lost but acknowledged that the union's "efforts to chase away business from the hotel have had some effect."

So far this year, the hotel's occupancy rate has been 29 percent, he said.

Indeed, union officials say their campaign has led at least 12 groups with reservations to cancel after hearing about the dispute, while six ignored their requests.

The hotel has been up for sale, but Andjelkovich said he wasn't aware of any bids.

In two years, there have been seven babies born to the strikers. Two strikers became U.S. citizens. One elderly striker was admitted recently to a nursing home. And the union has raised more than $100,000 in donations for a fund to cover medical and financial hardships.

The union has picked up workers' medical expenses.

In the two years, Sanchez said she and her husband, Abel, who is a gardener, have fallen behind several times on their mortgage payments and utility bills.

They have also bought less clothes, food, and furniture, and a daughter had to cut back on her community college classes because there was not enough money, she said. But she has not despaired.

"I tell people that we have hope that the strike will be fixed," she said.

Seated in a lobby far from the shouting, Larry Pierce, a visitor from Portland, Ore., admitted that he "felt a little guilty" when he crossed the picket lines.

But then he quickly added that he arrived with reservations in hand. And, he added, "everyone has their own problems."

Watching the strikers from a window inside the hotel, Ron Anderson, 72, who has run a shoeshine concession at the hotel for the last 12 years, said he believes they are "fighting for what they think is right."

The problem, he said, is that the hotel's owners are "not going to give in to their wishes."

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