BC Hotel workers are continuing their struggle to defend their jobs and their livelihoods against the ruthless hotel management. Affected hotel workers, many of them members of Unite Here Local 40, are fighting for the right of recall, which is the right to be rehired after a lay-off at their previous pay rate with the same accrued benefits. Hotel management is trying to take advantage of the pandemic to fire long-term workers and cut benefits.
The hotels owners are seeking to reverse important gains of the workers from past struggles, such as the successful strike of some Vancouver hotels in 2019. They are out to get rid of long-standing workers with seniority and union activists. Labour standards in BC and union-management collective agreements include the right of recall, but it is limited to six or twelve months. No one negotiated contracts with the assumption of a COVID disaster.
Since mid-2020, the workers have conducted a hunger strike, pleaded with John Horgan’s NDP government to intervene, and organized targeted boycott campaigns to win support from customers. Socialist Alternative is proud of our involvement in the victory from earlier this year in which the workers successfully won a settlement with three big hotels: the Hyatt, the Pinnacle, and the Westin. But for many the fight continues: workers at the Hilton Vancouver Metrotown are currently locked out, and workers at the Pacific Gateway Hotel are now on strike.
Over the Spring of 2021, Unite Here Local 40 has confronted the hotel owners wherever possible. Socialist Alternative has also taken part in the fight, helping to organize local volunteers and leafletting patrons of hotels like the Hilton.
BC Hotel Workers Threatened with Lockout
On April 28, the anti-union Hospitality Industrial Relations (HIR) group of 32 hotels with over 1,200 workers issued a 72-hour lockout notice via the BC Labour Relations Board. A lockout is a kind of anti-strike where employees are locked out and managers make do, or temporary replacements (scabs) are snuck in (although this is illegal in BC). The goal is to starve the workers until they give up or leave.
The union responded to the lockout notice by mobilizing new teams of volunteers including members of Socialist Alternative and forming worker committees in the HIR hotels. The workers confronted their managers about the lockout, many of whom were caught unawares and promised that they had no intention of following through. So far HIR has not followed through with its legal lockout position, but it continues to be a cloud hanging over the workers.
Big Victory as Unionized Lufthansa Workers leave the Hilton
The most recent victory for labour was on May 27, when locked out workers at the Hilton convinced Lufthansa to stop “breaking the strike.” The Lufthansa flight staff had been staying at the Hilton three nights a week. As regular patrons, Lufthansa crews were consistently crossing the picket line outside the hotel. A protester, hit by a bus carrying Lufthansa workers across the picket line, filed a lawsuit against Lufthansa, the Hilton Metrotown, Excalibur Security Services and Charter Bus Lines of BC Limited.
Workers and volunteers engaged in a consistent campaign to talk to Lufthansa pilots, flight attendants, and even customers at the Vancouver International Airport about the importance of international solidarity and of not crossing a picket line. As the campaign escalated they were interviewed by Global News before protesting Lufthansa as the flight crew chartered a bus bound for the Hilton.
The Lufthansa workers’ unions have now agreed to do the right thing and change hotels. Unionized Lufthansa pilots and flight attendants will not be staying at the Hilton if the management does not agree to give workers the right of recall. The Hilton stubbornly remains a part of the cartel threatening a BC-wide lockout. But the Lufthansa victory represents blood in the water for the workers and volunteers who will redouble their efforts to defend their recall rights and benefits.
Federal Quarantine Hotel on Strike
At the start of the pandemic the federal government gave a contract to the Pacific Gateway Hotel (PGH) in Richmond to be a federal quarantine hotel for international travelers. Yet the hotel took these public funds and proceeded to fire over one hundred workers. In response, workers went on strike.
The situation at the PGH is even more difficult because the hotel owners have a plan to redevelop the property into a brand-new hotel complex, and thus workers believe they have been preparing to stay out of operation for some time. That’s why the striking workers decided to target the building permit for the redevelopment at city hall. Their strategy to get the hotel owners to move is to build enough support, both in the local community and in Richmond city hall, to prevent the PGH redevelopment from going ahead.
Scandalously, the Federal Government, in cahoots with PGH management, is using the Red Cross to do the fired workers’ jobs. So much for Trudeau’s feminism and claimed friendly attitude to unions (the Liberal’s 2015 manifesto claimed that “Labour unions play an important role in protecting the rights of workers.”)
The Failures of John Horgan’s NDP
At this point, it may seem natural to look to BC’s apparently pro-worker NDP government for some help, but the NDP has thus far said few nice things and has done even less. According to the Government of British Columbia, BC hotels and restaurants shed 20,000 jobs from March to April 2021 alone. Preventing the collapse of a large section of the labour force should be an obvious priority, and yet the NDP refuses to act.
So far, it seems that relatively little government aid is forthcoming for the tourism industry, despite their calls for a $680 million bailout, and even less has been done for the service workers. NDP’s federal leader, Jagmeet Singh, spoke words of support for BC hotel workers, but the provincial NDP refuses to act. In the summer of 2020, Labour Minister Harry Bains ordered a report be conducted on what could be done for right of recall in the province and responded: “after careful consideration of all the facts and in light of the complex collective bargaining landscape outlined in the report, I have decided the best course of action is to refrain from interfering in the collective bargaining process.”
The NDP seeks to find a middle road between employers and workers. However, there is no middle way with an employer out to attack workers’ rights and weaken a union. Another excuse the NDP has put forward is if they intervene then a right-wing government would use it as an “excuse” to do the same. The former BC Liberal government (in spite of its name, is right wing) readily interfered in collective bargaining: ripping up the Teachers’ contract (declared illegal by the Supreme Court), ordering striking Port of Vancouver truck drivers back to work (which they ignored and won), and other actions. The right wing is on the bosses’ side and doesn’t need any “excuse” to attack workers.
“Collective bargaining process” is quite the euphemism for what is now happening to BC hotel workers. The employers are using the COVID closures, ordered by the government for public health, to destroy collective bargaining, as the workers have much reduced bargaining power. The spinal integrity of our provincial labour minister is truly staggering. If, while locked out, the workers receive unemployment benefits or go to soup kitchens or become homeless, as they often do, then even leaving the immorality of the lockout to one side, it would only seem reasonable for the BC government to step in and fix such a huge source of inefficiency. Yet the government refuses to take the reasonable steps necessary to prevent the working class from falling into poverty during COVID.
Socialist Alternative suggests a number of ways that the BC government could protect workers:
- Amend the Employment Standards Act to increase the length of time that recall rights are protected, due to the COVID emergency. This would not “interfere” in collective bargaining, but rather set a floor for labour relations, where any collective agreement could provide higher but not lower standards.
- Stipulate that all government aid to businesses comes with workers’ recall rights being secured.
Unionized Workers Hold Strong
While the loss of Lufthansa’s business represents a large financial hit to the Hilton, the owners are maintaining the lockout. The Pacific Gateway Hotel is going forward with a huge construction project even as they claim to not have the money to pay their workers. Ultimately, it is up to the workers to hold strong, to hold out, likely until COVID lifts and business returns. There are still more struggles on the horizon; only the workers’ ability to withhold their labour can ultimately compel hotels like the Hilton and governments like the NDP to “do the right thing.”
Members of Socialist Alternative Canada will continue to stand in solidarity with workers and to volunteer on their campaigns to protect their jobs. SA encourages you to volunteer too. Find out more at www.uniteherelocal40.org/contact-us/.
