Actions
in Defence of Hotel Jobs and for the Rights of All BC Hotel Workers Persist in Upholding Rights of Laid-Off Workers
- Brian Sproule - 
Hotel workers outside BC
Legislature, August 2020.
Nearly all 50,000 hotel
workers in BC as well as other hospitality workers such as those in
restaurants and airports and thousands of others linked to the industry
were laid off at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only small numbers
of workers have been called back to work while many have been
permanently terminated without severance pay. Those that have returned
to work report that instead of their regular jobs they are only working
part time and on an on-call casual basis at lower pay than before the
layoffs. Some hotels are insisting that workers sign away their rights
or face termination. Unite Here Local 40 which
represents 6,000 of these workers has been helping them uphold their
rights under the circumstances. Demonstrations have
been held on the lawn of the BC Legislature in Victoria since August
10. The workers also started day-long fasts outside the Legislature in
support of their demand for the legislated right to return to their
jobs after the hospitality industry recovers from the current pandemic.
A car caravan with signs and banners took place near the
Legislature on August 12. A worker at a nearby business posted on
social media "how grossly our industry staff have been treated by
business owners trying to make their buck on our health and lives.''
Reports appeared of people around the province organizing
fasts and pickets in support of the hotel workers. 
Rally and fast outside
Tourism Minister Lisa Beare's constituency office in Maple Ridge,
August
27, 2020.
Frequent press conferences were held and
a candlelight vigil took place on August 15. On August 27 a rally and
fast took place outside Tourism Minister Lisa Beare's constituency
office in Maple Ridge. Retired Presbyterian Minister Allen Aiken who
has been organizing support stated "Maple Ridge residents like me are
standing together with hotel workers during this crisis." He called on
the government to do the right thing. In the course
of their fight, laid off workers informed union representatives that
they have been forced to relinquish their full time status and the
rights to severance and vacation pay it entails to keep their jobs.
Lawyer Suzanna Quail was quoted on the Local 40 website: "You
might have had 20 years in this job, and then there's a pandemic and
the employer gets to just fire you and start from the beginning again?
It makes no sense." "A lot [of these workers] are immigrant women,
people with limited education, limited other opportunities to get a
unionized job and stay in a hotel for decades," Quail added.  The high-end JW
Marriott Park Hotel which sits on provincial crown land adjacent to BC
Place Stadium is the latest in a string of hotels to fire workers.
Unite Here Local 40 recognizes that as a result of the pandemic and
Ministry of Health orders the hotels had no choice but to shut their
doors and lay off workers. The workers themselves realize that it may
be two or more years before the hotels are fully operational. Their
issue is that while the hotel owners have requested a $680 million
bailout no worker has a legal right to get their job back as businesses
reopen.
People from the community, workers from
other unions, church organizations, cultural groups and some
politicians came out to support the workers. They won widespread
community support because this is in fact an issue coming up across the
country as the federal and provincial governments define the terms of
COVID-19 layoffs and payments received through federal programs, in a
self-serving manner. In the case of BC, the NDP
government has systematically refused to protect jobs through
guaranteeing recall rights. All kinds of self-serving arguments are
advanced to present this unprincipled position as proper. It is not
proper and no amount of fast-talk and expediency will turn a sow's ear
into a silk purse. Unite Here Local 40 has now
informed that laid-off hotel workers ended their "Fast for Our Jobs"
hunger strike in Maple Ridge following the September 1 announcement by
provincial Labour Minister Harry Bains regarding "recall protections."
The government announcement does not unequivocally uphold the rights of
the workers. Instead, Bains showed the extent of government hypocrisy
when he said that any economic recovery package would contain "a pledge
for employers to offer a right of first refusal to existing employees
when work resumes." In other words, it is their choice to "do the right
thing." 
Picket outside the Surrey
office of the Minister of Labour Harry Bains, August 31, 2020.
Unite Here Local 40 said members "will continue to push the
hospitality industry to ensure workers are able to return to their
pre-COVID jobs" and said it would consider this announcement "a first
step toward recall rights for laid-off workers." A union press release
quotes one of the laid off room attendants from the Hyatt Regency
Vancouver who participated in the hunger strike, saying, "Hotel workers
refused to stay silent and brought this crisis to the forefront. The
fact that we came together, first in Victoria and then in Maple Ridge,
to fast for 22 days to save 50,000 jobs, that's an accomplishment."
Known for their courage, BC hospitality workers had decided to
continue their hunger strike indefinitely as well as step up other
actions including press conferences, rallies, car cavalcades and picket
actions outside hotels and MLAs' offices. They now say they will not
back down from their just demand for the right to recall on the basis
of seniority with the same wages, benefits and working conditions as at
the time of layoff. Unionized and non-unionized workers, citizens and
residents of BC stand with hotel workers because their cause is just
and because they are defending the rights and dignity of all BC workers
and workers across the country.
This article was published in
Number 58 - September 3, 2020
Article Link:
Actions
in Defence of Hotel Jobs and for the Rights of All: BC Hotel Workers Persist in Upholding Rights of Laid-Off Workers - Brian Sproule
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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