Vancouver, BC — Workers terminated from Hilton Metrotown are now entitled to receive greater severance payouts after the hotel lost a key arbitration that has implications for the broader hotel industry. Hilton Metrotown terminated 97 workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and sought an exemption to the Employment Standards Act to avoid larger severance payouts under group termination rules. The arbitrator has ruled against the hotel and found they are not exempt.
Hilton Metrotown terminated the workers, the majority of them women and racialized, in recent weeks before locking-out its remaining staff on April 16. The hotel applied for an exemption from severance provisions under section 65 of the Employment Standards Act, which allows for exemptions due to the “impossibility” of performing employment contracts due to unforeseen events and circumstances. The arbitrator rejected their appeal on the grounds that the hotel is still operating and employing people, which ultimately proves that it is not impossible for Hilton Metrotown to comply with their obligations to perform employment contracts.
The Union estimates the hotel may owe workers hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional severance pay. This decision has implications for the hospitality industry—and beyond—as other employers, like Pan Pacific Vancouver and Four Points Sheraton Vancouver Airport, have tried to use COVID-19 as an excuse to skirt their severance obligations to workers.
Zailda Chan, President of UNITE HERE Local 40: “Hilton Metrotown will not get away with using the pandemic to cheat workers out of their full severance payments. This decision sends a strong warning to other hotels: do not use COVID-19 as an excuse to avoid your severance liabilities. If you plan to terminate your long-term workers, be prepared to pay workers what they are owed.”
For additional information, please contact: Stephanie Fung, 604-928-7356, [email protected], Michelle Travis, 778-960-9785,[email protected] ### 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.
http://www.uniteherelocal40.org/wp-content/uploads/local40logo-300x155.png00Michelle Travishttp://www.uniteherelocal40.org/wp-content/uploads/local40logo-300x155.pngMichelle Travis2021-05-19 10:52:002021-05-19 10:52:00PRESS RELEASE: Hilton Metrotown Loses Arbitration Over Group Severance Exemption; Fired Hotel Workers Entitled to Greater Payouts
H.I.R., the employer’s representative at Pacific Gateway Hotel, has provided statements to media misinforming them about bargaining.
In the month of April the Union offered 8 potential days for bargaining (April 14, 16, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27 & 30) with the Pacific Gateway. We received no reply to schedule any Pacific Gateway negotiations in April. The same was true in March 2021, the Union offered dates and there was no response on behalf of the hotel.
We committed to H.I.R. on May 5th that we are more than willing to negotiate in good faith and are ready to meet as soon as the employer has a new proposal for the Union that finds a path forward on recall for laid off workers and takes permanent concessions off the table.
Similarly at Hilton Metrotown, the Union is prepared to meet when the employer, also represented by H.I.R., has a new proposal regarding recall and concessions during a temporary crisis.
http://www.uniteherelocal40.org/wp-content/uploads/local40logo-300x155.png00Michelle Travishttp://www.uniteherelocal40.org/wp-content/uploads/local40logo-300x155.pngMichelle Travis2021-05-18 09:49:182021-05-18 11:24:45UNITE HERE Local 40 Statement regarding H.I.R. misinformation
Vancouver, B.C. — Today, a dozen locked out Hilton Metrotown workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 40, will leaflet Lufthansa airline crew members as they embark from the Vancouver International Airport to the hotel. Hilton Metrotown locked out workers last month after firing 97 staff. The employer has refused to commit to return long-term workers back to their jobs as business recovers. While large unions and Burnaby City Council have pledged not to patronize the hotel until it reinstates its workers, Lufthansa flight crew members continue to cross the picket line by staying at Hilton Metrotown. Hotel workers are entering the 5th week of the lockout.
WHAT: Locked outHilton Metrotown Workers’ to Demonstrate at YVR Airport
WHERE:Vancouver International Airport, 3211 Grant McConachie Way (USA & International Arrivals baggage pickup area, Level 2)
WHEN:Thursday, May 13, 3:00 p.m.
VISUALS: Hotel workers wearing masks standing 2 metres apart, holding colourful leaflets, banners, and signs.
Media availability with workers and UNITE HERE Local 40 representatives.
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.
http://www.uniteherelocal40.org/wp-content/uploads/local40logo-300x155.png00Michelle Travishttp://www.uniteherelocal40.org/wp-content/uploads/local40logo-300x155.pngMichelle Travis2021-05-13 08:10:322021-05-13 08:10:32Locked Out Hilton Metrotown Workers to Stage Demonstration at YVR Airport: “Lufthansa Airline Crew, Don’t Cross Our Picket Line!”
WHAT: On May 6, striking Pacific Gateway workers will stage a car caravan and rally Thursday afternoon to call attention to the hotel industry’s onslaught on women and immigrant workers. Community, labour groups, and allied hotel workers from area hotels will join the striking workers in the action.
WHO: Pacific Gateway hotel workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 40.
WHEN: Thursday, May 6, 5:00PM Pacific Time
WHERE: Pacific Gateway Hotel, 3500 Cessna Drive, Richmond, BC
WHY: The decision to strike this week comes after hotel management terminated 42 workers over the past weekend, upping the total of fired workers to 103. Workers are escalating job action over Pacific Gateway’s refusal to return workers to their jobs when the COVID-19 pandemic passes. The federal quarantine hotel is threatening to fire more long-term staff to induce them to accept a two-tier wage structure with replacement workers earning minimum wage.
While Pacific Gateway workers are on the 4th day of their strike, today also marks the beginning of the 4th week of Hilton Metrotown workers being locked out. Hotel workers across the province are fighting back against the industry attacks on long-term staff, many of whom are women and people of colour already bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 crisis.
VISUALS: Workers standing 2 metres apart, picketing with signs, banners, drums, pots, and pans. Car caravan with cars covered in signs and honking around Lysander Lane and Cessna Drive.
UNITE HERE Local 40 is a labour union representing workers in the hotel, food service and airport industries throughout British Columbia. Learn more at UniteHereLocal40.org.
http://www.uniteherelocal40.org/wp-content/uploads/local40logo-300x155.png00Michelle Travishttp://www.uniteherelocal40.org/wp-content/uploads/local40logo-300x155.pngMichelle Travis2021-05-06 09:45:412021-05-06 09:45:41Media Advisory: Striking Pacific Gateway Workers to Hold Car Caravan and Rally; Protest over Hotel Industry Attacks on Women, Racialized Workers
As of 5:00AM Pacific Gateway Workers are on strike. Women leading strike say, “Trudeau promised a ‘Feminist Recovery’ but won’t protect the women at the hotel he controls.”
WHAT: UNITE HERE Local 40 hotel members – room attendants, front desk agents, cooks, servers and more – are on strike at Pacific Gateway Hotel at Vancouver International Airport.
WHEN: Strike commences on May 3, 2021; 5:00AM
WHERE: Pacific Gateway Hotel, 3500 Cessna Drive, Richmond, BC
WHO: UNITE HERE Local 40 hotel workers and union representatives will be available for comment.
WHY: After months of watching their employer use the pandemic to fire long-term staff and roll-back the economic security of women and immigrant workers, Pacific Gateway Hotel workers are on strike. Workers are striking over hotel management’s refusal to commit to return long-term staff to their jobs when business recovers. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promises a feminist recovery, a hotel taken over by his government is destroying living wage jobs that enabled women and immigrant workers to join the middle class.
Pacific Gateway has terminated 103 workers, 42 of them this weekend – and nearly two-thirds of those fired are women. The hotel made clear its intentions to fire all those laid-off more than 12 months – the vast majority of its pre-Covid workforce. The average Pacific Gateway worker has worked at the hotel for more than a decade; some with over forty years of service.
Workers were displaced when the federal government took over the hotel last year under a quarantine order and brought in the Red Cross to perform their duties. The federal government has extended its contract several times and has looked the other way as hard-hit workers, many of them women from the South Asian and Chinese communities, pay the price.
“Prime Minster Trudeau, I was fired this past weekend after 27 years of service. Is this what you call a feminist recovery? I have 3 girls – one in Grade 5, one in high school, and another in college. I raised them on this job. Pacific Gateway is outright attacking women and our federal government is doing nothing to stop it. You said you would prioritize women in Canada’s economic recovery — but you’ve failed us. That’s why I’m on the picket line today with women like me. We’re not going to give up on everything we worked so hard for,” said Pardeep Thandi, a room attendant who served the hotel for 27 years until she was permanently laid-off this weekend.
Hotel management is using the temporary COVID-19 crisis to propose permanent changes to undermine job security and make the work more precarious. The employer wants a 7-year contract that would reduce many workers’ hourly pay to minimum wage. That would mean as much as $2.00 to $6.50/hour less for servers, hostesses, baristas, dishwashers, and others. The employer also wants to eliminate workers’ current union health and pension benefits, force them to share tips with management, allow for subcontracting and make changes that would allow the hotel to circumvent overtime, eliminate paid time off and severance, among other cuts.
The hotel’s demands are very similar to those made by Hilton Metrotown which locked out its hotel staff earlier this month. Both hotels are represented by Hospitality Industrial Relations (HIR), which issued a lockout notice last week to 1,200 hospitality workers who work at 32 other hotels, motels, and liquor establishments across British Columbia.
The federal government has given the hotel industry billions in public subsidies and other relief while the industry turns back the clock for women and racialized workers who are its backbone. Pacific Gateway Hotel, owned by Surrey-based PHI Hotel Group has taken advantage of the federal wage subsidy program, but unclear whether any workers benefitted.
UNITE HERE Local 40 is a labour union representing workers in the hotel, food service and airport industries throughout British Columbia. Learn more at UniteHereLocal40.org.
http://www.uniteherelocal40.org/wp-content/uploads/local40logo-300x155.png00Michelle Travishttp://www.uniteherelocal40.org/wp-content/uploads/local40logo-300x155.pngMichelle Travis2021-05-03 07:32:042021-05-03 07:32:04BREAKING: Workers Strike at Vancouver Federal Quarantine Hotel Over Mass Firings, Devastating Roll-backs
PRESS RELEASE: Hilton Metrotown Loses Arbitration Over Group Severance Exemption; Fired Hotel Workers Entitled to Greater Payouts
Vancouver, BC — Workers terminated from Hilton Metrotown are now entitled to receive greater severance payouts after the hotel lost a key arbitration that has implications for the broader hotel industry. Hilton Metrotown terminated 97 workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and sought an exemption to the Employment Standards Act to avoid larger severance payouts under group termination rules. The arbitrator has ruled against the hotel and found they are not exempt.
Hilton Metrotown terminated the workers, the majority of them women and racialized, in recent weeks before locking-out its remaining staff on April 16. The hotel applied for an exemption from severance provisions under section 65 of the Employment Standards Act, which allows for exemptions due to the “impossibility” of performing employment contracts due to unforeseen events and circumstances. The arbitrator rejected their appeal on the grounds that the hotel is still operating and employing people, which ultimately proves that it is not impossible for Hilton Metrotown to comply with their obligations to perform employment contracts.
The Union estimates the hotel may owe workers hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional severance pay. This decision has implications for the hospitality industry—and beyond—as other employers, like Pan Pacific Vancouver and Four Points Sheraton Vancouver Airport, have tried to use COVID-19 as an excuse to skirt their severance obligations to workers.
Zailda Chan, President of UNITE HERE Local 40: “Hilton Metrotown will not get away with using the pandemic to cheat workers out of their full severance payments. This decision sends a strong warning to other hotels: do not use COVID-19 as an excuse to avoid your severance liabilities. If you plan to terminate your long-term workers, be prepared to pay workers what they are owed.”
For additional information, please contact: Stephanie Fung, 604-928-7356, [email protected], Michelle Travis, 778-960-9785, [email protected]
###
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.
UNITE HERE Local 40 Statement regarding H.I.R. misinformation
H.I.R., the employer’s representative at Pacific Gateway Hotel, has provided statements to media misinforming them about bargaining.
In the month of April the Union offered 8 potential days for bargaining (April 14, 16, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27 & 30) with the Pacific Gateway. We received no reply to schedule any Pacific Gateway negotiations in April. The same was true in March 2021, the Union offered dates and there was no response on behalf of the hotel.
We committed to H.I.R. on May 5th that we are more than willing to negotiate in good faith and are ready to meet as soon as the employer has a new proposal for the Union that finds a path forward on recall for laid off workers and takes permanent concessions off the table.
Similarly at Hilton Metrotown, the Union is prepared to meet when the employer, also represented by H.I.R., has a new proposal regarding recall and concessions during a temporary crisis.
Locked Out Hilton Metrotown Workers to Stage Demonstration at YVR Airport: “Lufthansa Airline Crew, Don’t Cross Our Picket Line!”
Vancouver, B.C. — Today, a dozen locked out Hilton Metrotown workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 40, will leaflet Lufthansa airline crew members as they embark from the Vancouver International Airport to the hotel. Hilton Metrotown locked out workers last month after firing 97 staff. The employer has refused to commit to return long-term workers back to their jobs as business recovers. While large unions and Burnaby City Council have pledged not to patronize the hotel until it reinstates its workers, Lufthansa flight crew members continue to cross the picket line by staying at Hilton Metrotown. Hotel workers are entering the 5th week of the lockout.
WHAT: Locked out Hilton Metrotown Workers’ to Demonstrate at YVR Airport
WHERE: Vancouver International Airport, 3211 Grant McConachie Way (USA & International Arrivals baggage pickup area, Level 2)
WHEN: Thursday, May 13, 3:00 p.m.
VISUALS: Hotel workers wearing masks standing 2 metres apart, holding colourful leaflets, banners, and signs.
Media availability with workers and UNITE HERE Local 40 representatives.
For additional information, please contact: Stephanie Fung, 604-928-7356, [email protected], Michelle Travis, 778-960-9785, [email protected]
-30-
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.
Media Advisory: Striking Pacific Gateway Workers to Hold Car Caravan and Rally; Protest over Hotel Industry Attacks on Women, Racialized Workers
WHAT: On May 6, striking Pacific Gateway workers will stage a car caravan and rally Thursday afternoon to call attention to the hotel industry’s onslaught on women and immigrant workers. Community, labour groups, and allied hotel workers from area hotels will join the striking workers in the action.
WHO: Pacific Gateway hotel workers, represented by UNITE HERE Local 40.
WHEN: Thursday, May 6, 5:00PM Pacific Time
WHERE: Pacific Gateway Hotel, 3500 Cessna Drive, Richmond, BC
WHY: The decision to strike this week comes after hotel management terminated 42 workers over the past weekend, upping the total of fired workers to 103. Workers are escalating job action over Pacific Gateway’s refusal to return workers to their jobs when the COVID-19 pandemic passes. The federal quarantine hotel is threatening to fire more long-term staff to induce them to accept a two-tier wage structure with replacement workers earning minimum wage.
While Pacific Gateway workers are on the 4th day of their strike, today also marks the beginning of the 4th week of Hilton Metrotown workers being locked out. Hotel workers across the province are fighting back against the industry attacks on long-term staff, many of whom are women and people of colour already bearing the brunt of the COVID-19 crisis.
VISUALS: Workers standing 2 metres apart, picketing with signs, banners, drums, pots, and pans. Car caravan with cars covered in signs and honking around Lysander Lane and Cessna Drive.
Contact: Stephanie Fung, [email protected], 604-928-7356, or Michelle Travis, [email protected], 778-960-9785
#BCUnequalWomen #TakeBackThursday
www.bcunequalwomen.org
###
UNITE HERE Local 40 is a labour union representing workers in the hotel, food service and airport industries throughout British Columbia. Learn more at UniteHereLocal40.org.
BREAKING: Workers Strike at Vancouver Federal Quarantine Hotel Over Mass Firings, Devastating Roll-backs
CONTACT: Stephanie Fung, [email protected], 604-928-7356; or Michelle Travis, [email protected], 778-960-9785
As of 5:00AM Pacific Gateway Workers are on strike. Women leading strike say, “Trudeau promised a ‘Feminist Recovery’ but won’t protect the women at the hotel he controls.”
WHAT: UNITE HERE Local 40 hotel members – room attendants, front desk agents, cooks, servers and more – are on strike at Pacific Gateway Hotel at Vancouver International Airport.
WHEN: Strike commences on May 3, 2021; 5:00AM
WHERE: Pacific Gateway Hotel, 3500 Cessna Drive, Richmond, BC
WHO: UNITE HERE Local 40 hotel workers and union representatives will be available for comment.
WHY: After months of watching their employer use the pandemic to fire long-term staff and roll-back the economic security of women and immigrant workers, Pacific Gateway Hotel workers are on strike. Workers are striking over hotel management’s refusal to commit to return long-term staff to their jobs when business recovers. While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promises a feminist recovery, a hotel taken over by his government is destroying living wage jobs that enabled women and immigrant workers to join the middle class.
Pacific Gateway has terminated 103 workers, 42 of them this weekend – and nearly two-thirds of those fired are women. The hotel made clear its intentions to fire all those laid-off more than 12 months – the vast majority of its pre-Covid workforce. The average Pacific Gateway worker has worked at the hotel for more than a decade; some with over forty years of service.
Workers were displaced when the federal government took over the hotel last year under a quarantine order and brought in the Red Cross to perform their duties. The federal government has extended its contract several times and has looked the other way as hard-hit workers, many of them women from the South Asian and Chinese communities, pay the price.
“Prime Minster Trudeau, I was fired this past weekend after 27 years of service. Is this what you call a feminist recovery? I have 3 girls – one in Grade 5, one in high school, and another in college. I raised them on this job. Pacific Gateway is outright attacking women and our federal government is doing nothing to stop it. You said you would prioritize women in Canada’s economic recovery — but you’ve failed us. That’s why I’m on the picket line today with women like me. We’re not going to give up on everything we worked so hard for,” said Pardeep Thandi, a room attendant who served the hotel for 27 years until she was permanently laid-off this weekend.
Hotel management is using the temporary COVID-19 crisis to propose permanent changes to undermine job security and make the work more precarious. The employer wants a 7-year contract that would reduce many workers’ hourly pay to minimum wage. That would mean as much as $2.00 to $6.50/hour less for servers, hostesses, baristas, dishwashers, and others. The employer also wants to eliminate workers’ current union health and pension benefits, force them to share tips with management, allow for subcontracting and make changes that would allow the hotel to circumvent overtime, eliminate paid time off and severance, among other cuts.
The hotel’s demands are very similar to those made by Hilton Metrotown which locked out its hotel staff earlier this month. Both hotels are represented by Hospitality Industrial Relations (HIR), which issued a lockout notice last week to 1,200 hospitality workers who work at 32 other hotels, motels, and liquor establishments across British Columbia.
The federal government has given the hotel industry billions in public subsidies and other relief while the industry turns back the clock for women and racialized workers who are its backbone. Pacific Gateway Hotel, owned by Surrey-based PHI Hotel Group has taken advantage of the federal wage subsidy program, but unclear whether any workers benefitted.
#BCUnequalWomen
www.bcunequalwomen.org/bc-travel-alert/
###
UNITE HERE Local 40 is a labour union representing workers in the hotel, food service and airport industries throughout British Columbia. Learn more at UniteHereLocal40.org.