Federal
Government Operation of Pacific Gateway Hotel
Hotel Workers Demand Guaranteed Recall to Their Jobs
November
25, 2020. Press conference of Unite Here Local 40 representing hotel
workers at Pacific Gateway Hotel in Burnaby.
More than 80 per cent of the 150 workers employed by the
Pacific Gateway Hotel in Burnaby near the Vancouver Airport have been
laid off since the spring. The hotel is one of several that the federal
government is using for quarantine facilities. Federal and several
provincial governments and other agencies have negotiated contracts
with
hotels to house not only travelers but migrant farm workers and to
provide emergency housing for people without homes, women fleeing
violence and others. In almost all cases the hotels have recalled
their laid off staff to provide cleaning, maintenance, food services,
everything that is needed. Training in public health protocols required
to do
the work has been provided to the staff. However
this is not the case at the Pacific Gateway Hotel which is being used
for quarantine for international travelers arriving at Vancouver
International Airport. Instead of the laid off hotel workers being
recalled, the Red Cross has brought in other workers. In
hotels across the country it is the hotel workers that are doing the
work. According to a CBC report on August 20, the federal government
had by then arranged and paid for the quarantine of over 3,000 people
coming
into Canada, at 11 hotels across the country.  Hospitality
workers and their union, Unite Here Local 40, have been and continue to
be outspoken in demanding protection of their jobs at a
time when most hotels and restaurants are operating at minimal
capacity. Unionized hospitality workers have negotiated recall
periods in their contracts that vary from contract to
contract, however none cover the unprecedented length of the current
layoffs. Unorganized workers have only the protection provided by
provincial labour laws, which also do not provide protection in these
circumstances. Both the federal and provincial governments acted
swiftly to hand out billions of dollars to individuals and corporations
and
have repeated endlessly how important it is to keep the connection
between workers and employers, but for months now the hospitality
workers' demands for the necessary government measures to ensure that
employers cannot terminate them have fallen on
deaf ears. Hundreds of workers have been terminated and
hundreds more stand to lose their jobs in the next few months.
In a press conference on November 25, two Pacific Gateway
workers and the Executive Director of Unite Here Local 40 Robert
Demand explained the situation facing the workers at the hotel and the
refusal, to date, by federal and provincial governments
and the employer to guarantee the workers' right to job security.[1] One
of
the workers who spoke at the press conference is a server, Treva
Martell, who has worked at the hotel for 15 years. The other, Gangamma
Naidu, has worked at the hotel as a room attendant for 45 years. On
December 3, hotel management notified the workers that what they
call the federal government's "involuntary takeover" of the hotel has
been extended to March 2021. The union is calling for an extension of
recall rights for 24 months, to the fall of 2022 when it anticipates
that the sector will be back in operation. The silence from the federal
and provincial governments and employers is deafening. Zailda
Chan, President of Unite Here Local 40, states in a December 3 press
release, "The failure of the federal government to make
sure hotel workers aren't hurt by its takeover of the Pacific Gateway
is astounding. Workers at the hotel -- predominantly women and
immigrant
workers -- have been kept in the dark for months about the
duration of the federal contract and why feds are using a contractor to
perform hotel workers' duties. Now the hotel is suggesting workers
could permanently lose their jobs because of the extended federal
contract. "This is unacceptable from a federal
government which has given lip service to caring about workers hard-hit
by the pandemic. We want to know how the government plans to resolve
this situation -- one in which their actions will cause hotel workers
to
lose their jobs." Some of the biggest hotel
employers are taking advantage of the pandemic and the shutdown of much
of the tourism sector to terminate workers as a means of escaping their
obligations to meet the negotiated wages and working conditions that
workers have fought for and won. Most hotel employers did not apply for
Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy benefits to keep
workers on their payrolls and workers applied for Canada Emergency
Response Benefit and Employment Insurance benefits.
Governments have responsibility to the workers at the Pacific
Gateway Hotel, along with all hospitality workers and other workers in
danger of permanently losing their jobs, to ensure that emergency
measures are taken to extend recall rights for as long as it takes for
the industry to be operational and the workers recalled to their jobs.
Workers' Forum fully supports the demands
of
hospitality workers for their rights and for protection of all workers
in all sectors whose jobs are in danger due to shutdowns and layoffs
due to COVID-19. Note 1. For
video of the press conference click
here.
This article was published in
Number 85 - December 17, 2020
Article Link:
Federal
Government Operation of Pacific Gateway Hotel: Hotel Workers Demand Guaranteed Recall to Their Jobs
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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