Local 40 Announces 72 Hour Hotel Strike Notice
Chris · September 20, 2007
Yes, it’s true. UNITE HERE Local 40 announced a 72-hour strike notice today on behalf of union workers at the “Big-Four” downtown Vancouver hotels. If agreement can’t be met this Saturday in the next round of contract negotiations, Local 40 hotel employees will walk off the job.
Thanks to a tip from our hotelier community, I found out about the union press conference in time to head over to Local 40 headquarters at 1945 East Hastings to check out the action.
There was quite a showing of union officials and local politicians posturing for the media and calling out hotel employers at the Four Seasons, Renaissance, Westin Bayshore and the Hyatt Regency to get back to the table in the spirit of offering hotel workers the collective agreement they deserve.
Libby Davies, MP for Vancouver East, gave an inspirational speech about showing solidarity for union workers and the terribly high cost of living in Vancouver, but she failed to touch on any of the items actually being negotiated in the collective agreement. Shane Simpson, MLA for Vancouver Hastings, showed equal excitement for the union cause, and he spoke at length about the prosperity of tourism in the province. His suggestion that the prosperity be shared by employees who work in the tourism sector is fair enough, but the rest of his time was spent urging the hotels to come to the table to ensure a fair collective agreement.
Hang on a minute.
My understanding is that the Big-Bad...I mean, “Big Four” hotels have already acquiesced to the vast majority of union demands during negotiations to date, including a 20% pay increase (thanks News1130).
As expected, today’s press conference was purely about media hype and rallying more public support for the “downtrodden” hotel worker. What wasn’t mentioned was the fact that the Vancouver hotels negotiating with Local 40 have already agreed to all the goodies that the union is demanding, but that it’s the term of the agreement that has busted up progress.
Of course the hotels’ offer of a five year contact term (no matter how good) is not acceptable to the union. Local 40 wants a two year contract which would not only give them future bargaining leverage because of the coinciding Olympics, but also because other Local 40 hotel strongholds in regions such as Waikiki, Hawaii (and others) will also have contracts open for negotiation at that time. Why bargain solo with hotels when there is an opportunity to have multiple union markets banding together?
This strategy isn’t rocket science, but the result of holding up collective agreements (after demands are already met) really only affects the most important stakeholder--the employees. Employees are fighting for better pay and better conditions, which they have already been offered from their hotel employers. The rest is politics and strategy, and I fail to see how that is helping out the hotel employees. Job action doesn’t pay much, nor does it please hotel guests who would be severely inconvenienced by a strike.
In 45 minutes of listening to politicians talk through sweeping general statements of support for union brothers and sisters for the media (and one hotel blogger), I heard only one item truly worth repeating. Jim Sinclair, President of the B.C. Federation of Labour gave a passionate statement that hotel housekeeping employees have the fundamental “right to work and not be injured”. That’s one thing that we can all agree on.
Check out some highlights from today’s press conference, complete with uber-dramatic intro:
Linkage
Hotels Lose Over $500K Due to Strike [Vancouver Sun]
