Vancouver Hotel Employees Push for Better Conditions
Chris · August 15, 2007
On August 10, 2007, over 400 Vancouver hotel employees along with labour, political, and community supporters marched through downtown calling for a “middle class standard of living” and safer working conditions.
Local 40 union hotel workers from the Westin Bayshore, the Renaissance Vancouver, the Hyatt Regency, and the Four Seasons are currently in contract talks and are fighting for increased wages as they negotiate for workplace safety improvements, better pensions and health benefits, and more respect and dignity on the job.
Vancouver’s The Tyee wrote a scathing story yesterday featuring a handful of outspoken local housekeeping room attendants who spoke passionately about the “gross injustices” delivered upon them by their hotel employers. Here’s a snippet from Tom Sandborn’s article:
“They spend all day at work stooping, lifting and twisting in cramped quarters while wrestling with heavy mattresses, rushing to polish bathrooms and counters. Arms get bruised, backs get wrenched, the schedule keeps getting tighter. And at the end of most exhausting days, they depend on a handful of aspirin to blunt the pain.
That, say room attendants at some Vancouver tourist hotels, is the stark reality of their jobs.”
Someone not familiar with the inner workings of one of these hotels would read this excerpt and probably believe there is a serious problem in Vancouver. Obviously there are legitimate concerns. After all, the Tyee story was written from real stories from real room attendants.
I have always been an advocate for the fact that hotel room attendants have one of the most difficult jobs in a hotel. During my career I worked in top levels of housekeeping management in three luxury hotel properties, and was responsible for housekeeping indirectly as a director of operations. During that time I was very concerned about the workloads and the quality of life of our employees, and I often championed solutions to our work-load challenges. Every hotelier in Vancouver is concerned about this issue--it’s part of the operating culture of virtually every major hotel in the city.
Some days are really bad for room attendants, that’s true. But there is no discussion about the other ninety percent of days where supervisors and housemen are dispatched to assist with all the “stooping, lifting and twisting in cramped quarters”. It’s a way of life in housekeeping, and accommodations for room cleaning assistance, while not new, should be written into the language of collective agreements so that it becomes a formal solution.
It’s no trade secret that creating exceptional guest experiences makes good business sense. The hotel industry knows that attracting and retaining better employees is the only way to deliver on the brand promise, so they take it seriously.
Some of the hotel room attendants who were interviewed in the Tyee article work at the Delta Vancouver Airport hotel. They are not in the same Local 40 negotiating group as the “big four”, but they were wooed by the union to show support for their brothers and sisters.
Delta is renowned for taking care of their employees, and I have experienced first hand what that means within the Delta organization. Opportunities for advancement. People focussed work culture. Benefits. Four Seasons and the Hyatt, Renaissance and the Westin Bayshore are all top payers in their market for union hourly positions. They offer all the standard+ benefits that are expected of them in their negotiated contracts. These hotels are not perfect, but they all are mandated to take care of their employees. And they do it, even though strict union “seniority” policies often cripple their ability to groom and promote the best union employees to supervisory positions and beyond.
So, which Vancouver hotels are paying the big dollars for hotel employees and offering better work culture and conditions? Non-union hotels. Of course they are. These hotels keep unions out of their properties by paying higher wages and offering better benefits. Without the restrictions of a collective agreement, the employee can be better off.
Local 40 in Vancouver has undergone some recent leadership changes after long-time business rep Frank Beck resigned his duties following an alleged strategy disagreement with Local 40’s leadership in the U.S. Apparently, members of the current union team managing the entire negotiations are from Chicago, New York and San Francisco--sent here to inspire a more aggressive tone for hotel negotiations. The contract talks that last week’s worker demonstration supported have barely even started and Local 40 kicked it off by walking through member hotel lobbies and yelling in protest at guests. That’s not a great way to get visitors to want to come back to Vancouver.
Vancouver’s UNITE HERE! union demonstrations in Vancouver did bring real hotel work-life challenges to the forefront. An aging workforce, amenity creep, high cost of living in Vancouver--these are real issues. What union demonstrations do not highlight is the fact that hotel managers are highly motivated to keep their employees happy. In fact, management bonus programs are usually structured to include employee satisfaction as part of the overall plan.
There is still much work to be done to mitigate hotel employee challenges, but the answer isn’t backing a highly politicized union organization.
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Strike Update, Sept 12 [Vacant Ready]
