BC Hospitality Workers Ratify Hard Fought New Contract with Hospitality Employers 
The union representing hospitality workers in hotels, motels, pubs
and liquor stores in 14 communities in BC, UNITE HERE Local 40,
announced in a press release on September 13 that a new four-year
collective agreement with Hospitality Industrial Relations (HIR) has
been reached. Workers voted 80 per cent in favour of the new
agreement. The new contract covers over 1,000 hospitality workers in
Vancouver, Victoria, Coquitlam, Richmond, New Westminster, North
Vancouver, Abbotsford, Harrison Hot Springs, Kamloops, Castlegar, Port
Alberni, Mackenzie, Prince Rupert, and Fort St. John.
Since the beginning of the pandemic it has been known that recall
rights in the collective agreement and under the province's Labour
Standards Act were insufficient to protect workers' jobs in the
conditions of extended closures of businesses. While a few employers
agreed to extend recall rights so that workers would be able to return
to their
jobs when businesses reopened, most did not.
The union reports that "This contract includes an extension of recall
rights for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic -- through to July 1,
2023 or when the World Health Organization (WHO) declares the pandemic
is over. After an 18-month effort, BC's hospitality workers, represented
by UNITE HERE Local 40, have achieved a new standard securing the right
of workers to return to their jobs as business recovers... As well as
winning unlimited recall rights to cover future crises such as pandemics
and natural disasters, they won longer recall protection for regular
seasonal layoffs, increasing from six months to 12." Workers also
defeated attempts by employers to force concessions and the agreement
protects pension, health care, severance pay and workload provisions
previously negotiated.
This victory was won through sustained militant actions by workers
in many communities with rallies and pickets and a hunger strike at the
legislature in August 2020. They called on the NDP government to
extend the recall period provided in the Labour Standards Act not just
for themselves but for thousands of workers in a similar
situation. To their shame government ministers and MLAs refused to
meet with the workers and did not lift a finger or speak a word in
support of their just demands.
The greater the public awareness of the unjust actions of employers
and the just cause of the workers, the greater the public support. City
Councils in New Westminster, Burnaby and Victoria passed motions in
support of the workers' demands and withdrew their business from hotels
that did not guarantee workers' jobs on reopening. The BC
Federation of Labour did the same. Municipal and federal politicians,
union leaders and workers from many unions joined the hospitality
workers' rallies and pickets.
Stephanie Fung, a spokesperson for UNITE HERE Local 40 told Workers
Forum that the union is relieved and excited at the successful
conclusion of bargaining with HIR and said that this success was due to
all the actions of the workers themselves. She said that negotiations
continue with some of the other ten hotels that are not part of the
HIR to guarantee workers' recall rights and settle contracts. She said
"if HIR can agree to protect the workers there is no reason the other
ten can't so we will keep on fighting."
Workers' Forum congratulates the BC hospitality workers and their
union for this success in their determined and principled fight for
their rights and the rights of all workers. We stand with the workers
at the hotels not covered by this agreement where the fight for the
workers' rights continues.
This article was published in
Voluem [volume] Number [issue] - September 15, 2021 - No. 83
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/WF2021/Articles/WO08835.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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