Members of Unite Here Local 40 have won an important victory. Over 500 laid-off workers at the Hyatt, Pinnacle, and Westin hotels have finally secured the “right to recall,” that is, to be rehired at their previous pay rate with the same accrued benefits.
The workers’ contracts previously guaranteed temporarily laid-off employees their jobs back when business picked up again, but only for up to 12 months. Of course, no one was anticipating a pandemic that would shut down the industry for over a year. The workers have justly argued that those recall rights should be extended given the circumstances, but the hotels have refused to do so. The NDP government has also been unwilling to intervene despite appeals from workers. Instead of giving up, Vancouver hotel workers are organizing and fighting back and have now won an important victory in the struggle to defend their jobs.
This victory is a cause for celebration! Socialist Alternative members have protested with Unite Here, fasted with them, and most recently worked on the targeted boycott campaign preceding the hotels’ concessions. We will continue to fight for and with workers at those hotels where their contracts have not yet been won. A victory for labour is a victory for all.
Hotels take advantage of the pandemic to replace workers
When the pandemic shut down the tourism industry last year, hotels started to take advantage of the situation to lay off experienced workers and replace them with new workers at lower wages. As we wrote about last summer, workers with Unite Here Local 40 went on a hunger strike outside the legislature, demanding the NDP government intervene to protect their jobs. But Labour Minister Harry Bains refused to act except in symbolic gestures.
The hotels refused to extend recall rights even while turning down CEWS funds from the federal government intended to keep workers on the payroll. And in December 2020, less than a week after Coast Hotels terminated dozens of long-term workers, the NDP government had the gall to offer $105 million in relief funds for the tourism sector without any provisions about protecting jobs! The supposedly pro-worker NDP government evidently finds it much easier to intervene to protect the interests of owners and managers than it does to help workers whose livelihoods are at stake.
Starting in the autumn of 2020, the big Vancouver hotels were demanding that to even discuss extending recall rights, workers would have to permanently give up several parts of their contract. These included defunding their health benefit fund and eliminating certain jobs while merging others to make one person do the work of two or three! These changes would be completely unacceptable in pre-pandemic times. It shows just how hard workers have to fight to keep any gains they win, and how ruthlessly management will take advantage of any opportunity to claw them back.
Workers fight back
Throughout January and February of 2021, hotel workers mobilized in their unions to fight back against management. Unite Here Local 40 filed a class action lawsuit against Pan Pacific for reckless mass terminations of long-term workers, after which the workers overwhelmingly voted to join the union. Workers at the Hilton Vancouver Metrotown voted to strike with 97 percent in favour, and then called on the public to boycott the hotel. Then workers at the Pacific Gateway Hotel voted to strike with 91 percent in favour.
An important element of the union’s and workers’ strategy in the struggle for recall rights was the customer boycott campaign. This campaign involved calling the hotels’ major customers to explain the situation, answer their questions, and to ask them to urge the hotels to extend workers’ recall rights. Twenty-five workers and volunteers, including members of Socialist Alternative Canada, were involved in this campaign.
The hotels were clearly shaken by this new tactic, and soon were demanding that the workers and volunteers stop calling their customers. In return they would extend recall rights to summer 2022, but only if workers accepted all the cuts to the contract they had been demanding since the beginning! The union refused, responding that the new offer would only be accepted if the contract changes were temporary (until the end of the pandemic).
The workers and volunteers ramped up the boycott campaign, continuing to call and follow up with the hotels’ key customers. Some hotels attempted to threaten legal action, but the workers were undeterred. It was only a matter of days before the Westin, Hyatt, and Pinnacle hotels caved in to union demands. The recall rights would be extended to summer 2022 and the cuts to the contract would last only until the hotels returned to 60 percent capacity, at which point the previous contract would be restored.
Won the battle, not the war
Workers may have won a victory, but that doesn’t mean the war is over. There are more hotels that have not agreed to extend recall rights, and many workers have already been terminated. The workers at Pan Pacific just joined the union, but now have the huge task ahead of winning their first contract. More workers and volunteers need to hit phones and the streets to keep the pressure on. Other unions and labour groups need to speak up and stand in solidarity with BC’s hotel workers until every worker has the right to return to their job with good pay and safe working conditions.
On March 8, Unite Here Local 40 workers and supporters participated in a rally in downtown Vancouver in which the union launched their BC’s Unequal Women Campaign. As part of the rally and the campaign women are sharing their stories, including immigrant women and single mothers. Many have decades of service in the hotel industry, and some are close to retirement. These are the workers who made the hotel industry successful, and now management is kicking them to the curb and leaving them with nothing.
So, there is still a long road ahead for BC’s hotel workers, but the importance of this victory cannot be understated. The deal won by the Westin, Hyatt and Pinnacle hotel workers will be a powerful precedent and aid in the campaign. Socialist Alternative Canada is proud to have contributed to the victory for hotel workers and will continue to support them in the ongoing struggle.
