Union Calls to Boycott Nanaimo Golf Club
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Nanaimo, BC) Unite Here Local 40 is calling for a boycott of the Nanaimo Golf Club after two dozen food and beverage workers have been locked out by the Club for over nine months. Local 40 is BC’s Hospitality Workers’ union and represents the locked out workers. “January is the month that Nanaimo Golf Club Members are renewing their memberships”, explains Shelly Ervin, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 40, “and while many Nanaimo businesses and organizations are respecting our picket line, we are asking golf club members not to renew their membership as well as prospective members to use other local clubs until after a settlement is reached.”
To help raise awareness of this issue, Local 40 and the Nanaimo, Duncan & District Labour Council have partnered to post a billboard on the Island Highway northbound into Nanaimo from
Ladysmith. The message is a short and to the point “Nanaimo Golf Club Doesn’t Think You Care”. Stephanie Sparkes, one of the locked out workers, explains that “although the Golf Club seems to think that the community doesn’t care about us, our experience is that they care a lot”. She says that throughout the lockout people have been dropping by with food, honking as they drive by, and some local residents have hosted fundraisers to help out financially. “What we are hoping for is that residents of Nanaimo move one step further and start showing the company how much Nanaimo cares about workers and about good jobs, including those in the service sector!” says Sparkes. Both Nanaimo MLA Leonard Krog and Nanaimo MP, Sheila Malcomson have taken the time to meet with workers, hear their concerns directly and show their support by dropping by the picket line. Krog feels that this issue matters to the community. “Nanaimo wants this settled, and binding arbitration is the only sensible course”.
Workers are calling for Nanaimo residents to support the boycott of the Club, and to speak to friends, family and neighbours asking them not to renew their Golf Club memberships, and not to plan events at the club until these locked out members are back at work.
For more information:
Kirsty Peterson, Local 40 Communications
604-619-2934 or kpeterson@local40union.com