Hotel strikes across Boston saw another major surge Thursday morning, with over a thousand workers from four Boston hotels walking out and forming picket lines.

“We’re showing them that we got to do what we got to do to get our raise,” Renaissance Seaport hotel worker Dee Dee Jones said from their picket line. “Nobody wants to strike. It’s sad that we had to strike just to get a new contract. But we have to do what we have to do.”

Workers voted to go on a three-day strike at the Omni Parker House, Omni Boston Seaport, Renaissance Boston Seaport and Westin Boston Seaport following stalled contract negotiations that have been going on since April, the union said.

The strikes mark the third and largest wave of union action in Boston’s hospitality sector since many contracts expired after Aug. 31.

Across the city, about 2,500 hotel workers from 12 Boston hotels have joined in a series of three-day strikes in September, and the union has warned 35 hotels have braced to strike amid the tense negotiations.

“The bargaining has been ongoing, but frankly, we’re looking for dollars and they’re offering cents,” said UNITE HERE Local 26 President Carlos Aramayo, near the Westin Seaport and Omni Seaport picket lines. “If you talk to anybody here on the picket lines and you ask them if the economy is working for them, they’ll say it’s not. They’ll say that they can’t afford the rent. A lot of our folks can’t even afford to live in Boston anymore.”

Jones said like many workers, she has a long commute in from Rhode Island five days a week, and with the cost of living increases, “we just can’t afford to get what we get now.” Other workers, the union said, have had to take second jobs.

“People have to catch up for, frankly, wages they’ve lost over the past two years as well,” said Aramayo. “And so what we’ve put on the table and we’re really going to stick to, which is why there’s so many strikes, is a record contract for Local 26 over the next four years.”

Hotels have still cut back services following the pandemic, he added, though the area hotels have returned to “record profitability,” with high occupancy and room rates as high as $700 or $800 a night.

Aramayo cited livable wages, fair scheduling, safe workloads, pensions and job security among the workers’ demands for new contracts.

The union said this is the first strike in the history of the Omni Parker House, the oldest continuously operating hotel in the country at nearly 170 years old. The newer addition, the Omni Boston Seaport, is the largest hotel in Boston.

The tone at the picket lines is serious, members said, but also boisterous and joyful with hundreds out and singing, drumming and honking heard for blocks around the hotels.

Jones, who’s worked in hotels for 25 years, called her fellow workers her “second family.”

“We’re a team here, and we work hard,” said Jones. “We go out together, we’ll go back in together.”

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Strikes earlier in the month included workers from the Hilton Park Plaza, Hilton Boston Logan Airport, Hampton Inn & Homewood Suites at the Hilton Seaport, Fairmont Copley Plaza, The Dagny Boston, Moxy Boston Downtown, The Newbury Boston, and the W Boston.

The union has compiled a travel guide to help guests navigate their stays around ongoing labor disputes.