Archive for category: News

Media Release: Labour Day Marks 13th Day of Strike for Coast Victoria Hotel Workers

Victoria, BC — As Canada celebrates Labour Day, a day dedicated to recognizing the struggles, achievements, and essential contributions of working people, workers at Coast Victoria Hotel continue their fight on the picket line. Today marks the 13th consecutive day of their strike action, a courageous fight for living wages, fair workloads, and proper staffing levels.

The strike began after months of unsuccessful negotiations with hotel management, who have failed to address key issues that workers say are undermining their livelihoods and well-being.  Workers are seeking living wages to meet the high cost of living in Victoria; fair housekeeping workloads so that room attendants have sufficient time to complete tasks and avoid injury; and proper staffing levels to address understaffing that impacts the quality of service for guests, as well as the health and safety of workers.

The Coast Victoria Hotel strike has galvanized local support from unions and community organizations. Throughout the strike, supporters and hotel customers have joined the picket line in solidarity with workers who are leading the call for better quality hospitality jobs in Victoria.

Victoria, like many Canadian cities, is facing a severe affordability crisis. The cost of housing, groceries, and other basics have increased, while wages have lagged behind. Hotel workers, the backbone of Victoria’s tourism economy, have seen the hotel business rebound far beyond pre-pandemic levels, while pay and working conditions do not reflect their essential contributions.

The strike at Coast Victoria Hotel is part of a larger wave of worker activism across the hospitality industry and other sectors of BC’s economy. This Labour Day, workers across sectors are voicing similar concerns to demand fair pay, manageable workloads, and dignified conditions.

“Labour Day is about the power and value of working people,” said Zailda Chan, President of UNITE HERE Local 40. “Coast Victoria workers are carrying on a proud tradition of standing up for fairness, not only for themselves but for all workers in our community.”

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Hospitality Workers Rally Outside Horizon North Office in Edmonton to Demand Fair Treatment

Edmonton, AB – Dexterra Horizon North camp hospitality workers, members of UNITE HERE Local 40, gathered outside Horizon North’s Edmonton travel hub yesterday morning in a spirited demonstration calling for respect, fair treatment, and enforcement of their hard-won contract.

Workers arrived with flags and energy as they demanded better working conditions in remote resource camps across northern British Columbia. Horizon North, a subsidiary of Dexterra Group (TSE: DXT), dispatches workers from Edmonton to remote camps where they endure 20-day rotations, 10 to 12 hour workdays, and long travel times away from their families.

“Today’s rally shows the strength and determination of camp workers who are ready to fight for the respect they deserve,” said Miranda Nedd, First Cook at Kobes Creek Lodge. “We are the backbone of Horizon North’s operations, yet we continue to face unfair treatment. That has to change.”

The successful demonstration marks an escalation in workers’ push for improved conditions, highlighting the growing frustration with Horizon North’s treatment of union members.

UNITE HERE Local 40 represents approximately 1,000 camp hospitality workers and successfully negotiated new contracts at Red Chris Mine, Cedar Valley Lodge, Kobes Creek Attachie and CPC Montney Lodge earlier this year. The union continues to raise standards for workers across the sector.

Media Contact: Rifat Islam – 604-619-0798 – [email protected]

Coast Victoria Hotel Workers Strike Again, Demand Living Wages and Proper Staffing Amid Tourism Boom

Victoria, BC — Frontline workers at the Coast Victoria Hotel have walked off the job for the second time this month, escalating their call for urgent action on living wages, safe workloads, and proper staffing levels.

The strike, led by members of UNITE HERE Local 40, comes at a time when Victoria’s tourism industry is breaking records. Despite booming business, workers say they’re being pushed to the brink, unable to afford to live in the city they serve and forced to shoulder unsafe workloads due to chronic understaffing.

“Victoria is booming for hotel owners, but for the people doing the work, the city is becoming impossible to live in,” said Melissa Irvine, a room attendant; “We’re not asking for the moon, just enough to live where we work and to do our jobs safely, with adequate staff.”

“Our workloads are unsafe, our wages are unsustainable, and our patience has run out,” said Mike Hull, a server at the Blue Crab Restaurant. “With tourism this strong, there’s no excuse for Coast Victoria not to invest in the staff who keep our hotel running.”

Workers say the front desk and restaurant are understaffed, forcing employees to juggle multiple roles with little support. Room attendants report being pressured to clean newly renovated rooms, which take longer to service, at unsafe speeds, risking injury and burnout.

Despite repeated attempts to address these concerns through bargaining, management at Coast Victoria has failed to meaningfully respond. Workers say they will not return to negotiations until there is a clear commitment from the hotel to resolve core issues.

Meanwhile, Victoria’s hotel industry is enjoying its most profitable season in years. Hotel occupancy reached nearly 92% in June, and revenue per available room (RevPAR) increased 17% in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. This is the strongest performance of any major BC hotel market, based on data from Destination BC.

Picket lines are now up outside the Coast Victoria Hotel, and the strike is expected to disrupt hotel operations as well as service at the Blue Crab Seafood House.

Media Contact: Rifat Islam – 604.619.0798 – [email protected]

BREAKING: Coast Victoria Hotel Workers are On Strike!

For Immediate Release

Victoria, BC — Hospitality workers at Coast Victoria Hotel walked off the job and onto the picket line this morning, launching the city’s first hotel strike in decades.

Room attendants, front desk agents, kitchen staff, servers, and other employees began striking ahead of the busy August weekend, demanding safer workloads, respect on the job, and living wages. The workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 40, are conducting a 1-day strike to protest the company’s indifference to their longstanding concerns. Picket lines went up at 5AM this morning and will impact staffing at the hotel and the Blue Crab Seafood House.

The city of Victoria is experiencing a surge of visitors with hotel occupancy reaching nearly 92% last month. Coast Victoria has met the influx of tourists by charging hotel guests nearly $400 per night and up to $1,000 for some rooms. Workers are calling for living wages to keep up with the rising cost of living in the city, as the living wage in Victoria has climbed to nearly $27 an hour.  Workers are also demanding safe housekeeping workloads, proper staffing, and respect on the job.

The workers have been in negotiations for a new collective agreement for several months. Their last collective agreement expired on April 30.

Coast Victoria is owned and operated by APA Hotels & Resorts, the Tokyo-based hotel chain. In February, APA reported record earnings across international operations of 226 billion yen ($2.1 billion CAD) and stated in a company publication that the company was “setting sales and profit records for the second period in a row.”

Media Contact: Michelle Travis, [email protected], 778-960-9785

Horizon North Accused of Blacklisting Camp Workers Based on Union Affiliation

Vancouver, BC – UNITE HERE Local 40 has filed an unfair labour practice complaint with the BC Labour Relations Board against Horizon North, a subsidiary of Dexterra Group (DXT.TO), alleging the company is blacklisting low-wage immigrant workers because of their union affiliation.

Horizon North operates remote work camps across Western Canada and employs hundreds of workers—many of them immigrants—in food service, housekeeping, and maintenance roles. The company frequently reassigns laid-off staff to other camps when work slows. However, the union says Horizon North is systematically denying those reassignments to workers from unionized camps, blocking them from jobs at non-union sites solely because they are members of Local 40. In some cases, management explicitly told workers they were ineligible for reassignment because of their union affiliation.

“This is blatant blacklisting of low-wage immigrant workers who dared to join a union,” said Zailda Chan, President of UNITE HERE Local 40. “Horizon North is punishing them for organizing and stripping them of future job opportunities.” The complaint accuses the company of violating Section 6 of the BC Labour Relations Code and seeks an order to end the practice, release records of affected workers, and compensate those denied work.

This complaint comes two months after Horizon North locked out workers from Kobes Creek Lodge and left them stranded in Fort St John, hundreds of kilometers from their homes in Edmonton. This was the first lockout at a BC camp in decades – another time in which Horizon stood out for its anti-union activity.

Media Contact: Nate Holers, [email protected], 250-889-7682