B.C.'s summer of hotel-worker discontent is continuing.
Workers at the Residence Inn Downtown Vancouver – Marriott are in their second week on strike after providing strike notice in late July.
This comes as workers at the Hyatt Regency, Pinnacle Harbourfront and Westin Bayshore hotels are without contracts and are considering job action to follow a one-day strike outside the Hyatt Regency Vancouver on July 16, a union representative told BIV this morning.
Workers at the Radisson Blu Vancouver Airport Hotel & Marina in Richmond have been on strike for more than three years. Workers at that hotel, formerly known as the Pacific Gateway Hotel, walked off the job on May 3, 2021 after the union said the employer terminated 143 long-term staff.
Hotel workers at the Hotel Grand Pacific in Victoria announced this morning that they had voted 92 per cent in favour of strike action, after the union said negotiations stalled in May.
The most recent labour disruption in Metro Vancouver took place Aug. 4, when workers started picketing outside the Residence Inn Downtown Vancouver – Marriott, at 1234 Hornby Street.
An undisclosed number of workers at that hotel had voted 100 per cent to go on strike, and their union, Unifor, provided 72-hour strike notice on July 29.
Unifor said the job action at the hotel came after weeks of contract negotiations "over fair wages, lighter workloads and improved benefits."
It added that the hotel employs more than 70 Unifor members, who work in housekeeping, front desk, maintenance, and food and beverage departments.
The union said that despite progress on non-monetary issues since bargaining began on July 15, significant differences remain on wages.
"A very high percentage of the [70] workers voted," Unifor's western regional director Gavin McGarrigle told BIV this afternoon, adding that the union does not provide exact numbers for those who vote in strike votes.
A notation on the hotel's website reads, verbatim: "Breakfast Service has been suspended. Pool and Fitness center closed. No stayover cleaning provided.Cancellation fees waived."
Residence Inn Downtown Vancouver – Marriott general manager Susan Fregona confirmed to BIV that operations at her hotel are affected.
"We relocate guests where necessary, but we are doing our very best to reduce the number of rooms that we relocate to other hotels," she said.
She said her hotel is not accepting new reservations from guests who want to stay in the immediate future.
"We resumed bargaining today," Fregona said. "We presented our most recent [offer,] and we're waiting for the union's response," she said.
Union bargaining with employers has been hit and miss across the province
Workers at the Hyatt Regency, Pinnacle Harbourfront and Westin Bayshore hotels have been without a contract since mid-2022 and "we're still in bargaining," the union, Unite Here Local 40's spokesperson Michelle Travis told BIV this afternoon.
Workers at those hotels last year voted 65 per cent to support job action, although that job action had largely been avoided until the one-day strike in July. The only action before July had been hour-long strikes and other smaller job actions, Travis said.
The workers' ability to hold one-day strikes this year was authorized by that strike vote last year even though the strike vote was held so long ago, she said.
Hotel management had been in negotiation with the union up until February, when talks broke off. They then restarted after the one-day strike in July.
Unite Here Local 40 "just had bargaining with GVHEA [Greater Vancouver Hotel Employers' Association] last week, and with Holiday Inn Downtown Vancouver yesterday," Travis said.
Some hotel workers have been able to reach contract agreements without resorting to strikes.
McGarrigle said workers at Victoria's Fairmont Empress Hotel voted to strike if necessary in March 2023. They then reached a contract without needing to take job action.
That contract set a template for workers at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, who also agreed to a new contract, in late August 2023, without needing to resort to strike action, he said.
McGarrigle said workers at the Coast Coal Harbour hotel in Vancouver reached an an agreement on a new contract in the last two months, which followed what he called a "very high strike vote."
Other Metro Vancouver hotels that he said Unifor represents include the Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel in Surrey and the Radisson Vancouver Airport Hotel in Richmond.
"I don't believe either one of them are anywhere close to a strike or any job action," McGarrigle said.
Hotel spats aside, B.C. lags the rest of Canada in terms of work stoppages, according to a BIV investigation earlier this summer.
