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FIRST ON FOX: The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) racked up a $1.2 million tab at D.C.’s five-star Salamander Hotel during a lobbying trip to oppose President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a new report from the Center for Union Facts (CUF) found.
Social media posts show SEIU members from around the country converged in Washington, D.C., between June 23 and June 29, 2025, to confront lawmakers and stage protests against the tax and spending cuts under consideration in Congress. Department of Labor disclosures logged on June 30, 2025 reveal that the union spent $1.2 million of members’ dues at the Salamander Hotel to cover a series of expenses labeled as “support for political activities.”
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act served as the cornerstone of Trump’s second-term economic agenda. While supporters touted tax-breaks for service workers and small business owners, critics argued cuts to health and food subsidies would harm less affluent Americans. This disagreement sparked fierce opposition, including the SEIU’s seven-figure protest campaign, though Trump ultimately signed the bill into law on 4th of July weekend 2025.
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The SEIU did not respond to a request for comment after being contacted by Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
SEIU chapters posted images of its members in the hotel’s event spaces and outside its rooms to social media in late June 2025, according to images collected by CUF and reviewed by Fox News Digital.
“The SEIU lectures the country about economic justice by day and apparently checks into five-star luxury hotels by night on their members’ dimes,” CUF communications director Charlyce Bozzello told Fox News Digital. “So much for solidarity.”
CUF is a nonprofit interest group critical of organized labor. The SEIU, meanwhile, is a union representing roughly two million workers in healthcare, public service, and other sectors.
The hotel appears in the Michelin Guidebook, a catalog of luxury hotels published by the same organization responsible for awarding coveted Michelin stars to restaurants.
“While it’s slightly less central than some of the older hotels, there’s an immediate payoff in the form of spectacular views — rooms overlook the Mall and the Washington Monument on one side, with the Basin and Jefferson Memorial on the other,” the guide reads. “Facilities, of course, are first-class; the Salamander Spa is one of the main attractions, itself as large as some hotels we’ve seen, offering every therapy yet devised in a surprisingly chic environment.”
Alongside spacious rooms and dramatic architecture, the Salamander Hotel has several luxury dining options, including a restaurant belonging to celebrity chef Kwame Onwuachi.
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CUF notes in its report that the SEIU has its own conference space in D.C., raising questions about why it spent so much at the five-star hotel.
The SEIU’s website states that “dues are a touchy topic in any union,” and that “when times are tough, almost any expense can seem burdensome to workers.”
The webpage goes on to explain how the SEIU believes that dues payments help union members secure better pay and benefits through lobbying efforts, legal aid, educational programs and organizational training.
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While staying in D.C. to protest the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, some SEIU members were among the more than two dozen people arrested by the United States Capitol Police for illegally occupying a Senate office building on June 25, 2025.
Disclosures show that the SEIU spent additional funds at other high-end resorts in 2025.
Among these was the Salamander Resort in Middleburg, Virginia, where the union’s leadership spent $32,806 on “staff meetings and training.” The resort consistently ranks among the best in the nation.
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