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Vancouver, BC — B.C. hotel housekeepers from Hilton Metrotown, Pan Pacific Vancouver, and Pacific Gateway, represented by UNITE HERE Local 40, are inviting Fairmont Hot Springs Resort CEO Vivek Sharma to meet the province’s Unequal Women and clean rooms for a day, in response to sexist comments he made earlier this month. At the B.C. Tourism and Hospitality Conference in Richmond on March 9, Sharma asked women in the audience to stand and be honoured for International Women’s Day. Then he told them to “go clean some rooms and do some dishes.”

“I’m extremely offended,” said locked out Hilton Metrotown housekeeper Cecilia Rutter who served the hotel for 21 years. “It’s clear Mr. Sharma doesn’t realize that women are the backbone of B.C.’s tourism and hospitality industry.Does he think our hard work and our many years of service to guests is a joke? Does he think we’re unequal to him? As a single mom, my housekeeping job helped me raise my son and I’m proud to be fighting on the picket line now for a better future for my co-workers and all women who work in hospitality.”

“On behalf of B.C.’s Unequal Women who were terminated by hotel employers in the pandemic and women hotel workers who face precarity back on the job, we invite Mr. Sharma to meet us and learn how he can make the industry a ‘safer place’ for women and other underrepresented groups,” said Naden Abenes, a housekeeper at Hyatt Regency Vancouver who ran in last year’s federal election as the NDP candidate for Vancouver Quadra. “That’s what he said in his apology he wanted to do, so we’re giving him a chance to make amends. The best way is by meeting the very women whom he degraded and see what it’s like firsthand to be a housekeeper. I’m sure he’ll gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of women in B.C.’s hospitality industry once he walks a mile in our shoes.”

UNITE HERE Local 40 launched a website last spring, B.C. Unequal Women, to call attention to how hotels have used the pandemic to roll back the clock on women’s economic security. Hilton Vancouver Metrotown, Pan Pacific Vancouver, and Pacific Gateway hotels terminated their employees over the course of Covid. Many of the workers affected were long-term and women of colour.

For more information, please contact: Stephanie Fung, 604-928-7356, [email protected], or Michelle Travis, 778-960-9785, [email protected].

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UNITE HERE Local 40 is the hospitality workers’ union and represents members in the hotel, food service and airport industries throughout British Columbia. Learn more at UniteHereLocal40.org.

U.S. Representatives highlight loans to hotel chain Westmont Hospitality Group in letter to Small Business Administration calling for “vigilant oversight” of loan forgiveness process.

Vancouver, B.C. – Members of U.S. Congress are raising questions about U.S. Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans received by the hospitality industry and highlighting Canadian hotel owner, Westmont Hospitality Group, which received $48 million in PPP loans. Westmont affiliates own or operate more than 20 hotels across Canada, including Pan Pacific Vancouver. 

On Tuesday, U.S. Representative Ruben Gallego (AZ-07) along with 17 other co-signers, sent a letter to the Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration to call for greater transparency in light of concerns whether PPP loans were used in accordance with congressional intent to protect hospitality workers’ jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The letter urges the SBA to provide increased oversight regarding forgiveness of the loans before they are forgiven.  

The letter highlights Mississauga-based Westmont Hospitality Group, an international hotel company that owns and operates over 400 hotels around the world, as an example of the need for “vigilant oversight” and improved transparency. According to data provided by the SBA, Westmont affiliates received $48 million through 44 PPP loans that were tied to approximately 5,300 jobs. Despite this, the letter states, a lack of transparency by the SBA has made it “impossible” to determine whether those 5,300 jobs were actually retained, yet over $28 million of the Westmont-connected loans have already been forgiven.

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was passed by Congress as part of the CARES Act of 2020 in an effort to support small businesses and save jobs in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. PPP borrowers must spend at least 60% of their loans on payroll costs in order to receive full loan forgiveness. 

UNITE HERE Local 11, the labor union that represents hospitality workers in California and Arizona, presented evidence to Congress Members regarding one hotel connected to Westmont that received a PPP loan but issued WARN Act notices that it had permanently separated 122 workers, raising the question whether PPP had really served its purpose of protecting jobs.   

On Wednesday, UNITE HERE Local 11 submitted testimony to the House Small Business Administration’s Small Business Oversight, Investigations and Regulations Committee hearing titled “An Empirical Review of the Paycheck Protection Program.”

Among the entities that received loans listing Westmont’s Texas office address, seven listed “Red Roof Inn” but did not indicate which specific hotel properties were recipients of PPP funds or whether workers benefitted from the loans.  

Westmont owns and operates dozens of Red Roof Inn properties in the United States.  The company is also affiliated with R&R Real Estate Investment Trust (TSXV: RRR-UN) which owns a portfolio of Red Roof Inn hotels in the United States that are managed by the family company that owns Westmont. Westmont president, Majid Mangalji, serves as the Executive Chairman and is the largest shareholder of R&R REIT. According to public filings, R&R REIT received loans worth $1.3 million under the U.S. CARES Act. They have since been forgiven. 

Congressional letter available here. 

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UNITE HERE Local 40 is a labour union representing hospitality workers throughout British Columbia. UNITE HERE Local 40 and UNITE HERE Local 11 are affiliates of UNITE HERE International Union.  The union represents Westmont workers in certain hotels across Canada and the United States.