Hospitality Workers Continue to Demand that Their Jobs Be Protected
Unite Here Local 40, which represents 6,000 of
the
50,000 hospitality workers in BC, has announced plans to hold five
day long fasts in front of the BC Legislature from August 10 to August
14 from 9:00 am to 11:30 pm each day. The Facebook announcement calls
on
readers to "Join us for a week where fasting workers will demand
meetings
with our reluctant MLAs, find strength in our community and spiritual
allies, and seek justice for the workers who've spent their lives
building BC's tourism industry."
The worker wants to meet with members of the
Legislature to demand action to protect their jobs regardless of how
long they will be laid off due to COVID-19. The tourism industry is
asking for a $680 million bailout and the workers insist that any
assistance to
the industry should be contingent on protection of their jobs. Hotel
operators in BC are
also calling for a further extension by the provincial government of
the layoff period, after which employers have to pay severance, beyond
the current end date of August 30, and for the federal government to
extend the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).
 There are 1,252
hotels and 83,000 hotel rooms in
the province. All were closed at the onset of the pandemic and about
25 per cent remain closed. Those that have reopened are running at
about 30 per cent
capacity. Only a small fraction of the regular workforce has been
recalled, often at reduced hours of work without regular work schedules.
Prior to announcing the week of fasting at the
Legislature, Local 40 organized a series of events to publicize their
situation and demands including pickets, rallies and press conferences
in front of hotels as well as outside Tourism Minister Lisa Beare's
constituency office in Maple Ridge, and at the constituency offices of
other Members of the
Legislature (MLAs). On July 7 about 60 hotel workers and their
supporters rallied outside the Legislature. On July 28 the union
organized a protest outside the Shangri-La Vancouver, a high-end hotel
owned by Westbank and Peterson Investments, two major Vancouver
developers. The protest was against the firing of dozens of workers on
layoff
by the Shangri-La which follow similar actions at the Pan Pacific and
other hotels in the Vancouver area.
The press release issued at the time of the
protest at the Shangri-La contains statements from two of the fired
workers: KM Chan, formerly laid-off server assistant at Shangri-La
Hotel Vancouver said "I don't understand why they had to terminate us.
Why couldn't they just leave us on lay-off so we would have jobs to
return to after the
pandemic? I have co-workers that relied on this job to obtain their
permanent residency and were close to getting their PR status, but with
these unfair terminations they will lose everything they worked so hard
for and could be forced to leave the country." Rajini Fjani, formerly
laid-off room attendant at the Pan Pacific Hotel said "Those of us
who were fired may be replaced by temporary workers earning minimum
wage. My co-workers who remain employed are told they must sign away
their years of service to become casual, on-call workers, and waive
their severance rights. Otherwise, they will be fired. The Province
needs to act now to protect workers and make sure we have jobs
to go back to when business improves."
In an email to Lisa Beare, BC's Minister of
Tourism, Arts and Culture, Michelle Travis, research director for Local
40, explained that at the Pan Pacific hotel management has asked
employees to accept a rollback of their employment rights or risk
losing their jobs. She said "They are being asked to give up their
regular status, their schedule and
seniority to become casual, on-call workers. It also appears they are
being given $250 to sign away any claims on severance."
Travis called on the government to create a
right-of recall for all workers that remains in place until the
pandemic is over, that workers should have a chance to return to their
jobs once the industry recovers. If not, she said, employers will hire
lower paid workers. "That creates a race to the bottom."
Since the onset of the pandemic employers have
sought to use the crisis as pretext for stepping up their attacks on
workers' rights which includes stripping unionized workers of working
conditions and wages they have won over the years and circumventing
minimum standards for non-union workers under Employment Standards.
They want to
replace stable jobs with casual, on call or gig economy-type contracted
jobs where the workers are facing most precarious conditions and are
not covered by the Employment Standards Act. It
must not pass!
BC hospitality workers are waging a courageous
fight for their jobs and for the right of all workers to be treated
with dignity and respect and are calling on everyone to support them.
Besides joining them at the legislature Unite Here local 40 is asking
British Columbians to send a message to their Member of Parliament to
adopt the
"Hospitality Workers' Three Essentials for a Safe Recovery" which are;
protection of workers' jobs, ensuring a safe route back to work, and
providing income support to laid-off workers. The letter can be sent
from the Unite Here Local 40 website at www.uniteherelocal40.org.
This article was published in
Number 54 - August 13, 2020
Article Link:
Hospitality Workers Continue to Demand that Their Jobs Be Protected
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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