Toronto Update

Toronto Hotel Workers Authorize Strike

June 3, 2010

Workers at 32 Toronto and area hotels have overwhelmingly given strike authorization to stop declining working conditions and other draconian measures they say are plunging them into precarious work and reducing the quality of service to hotel guests. With most hotel contracts having expired by February 2010, the votes authorizing strike action by upwards to 5,500 workers are being conducted just prior to the G20 summit, the G20 alternative civil society's People's Summit, and a summer tourism season on the rebound after the 2008 recession.

"Many of us are immigrants, women and workers of colour and we have fought hard to lift ourselves out of poverty. Yet the hotels are trying to undo all that by continuing to cut hours and service levels as if they're still in deep recession, which they aren't," said Cicely Phillips, a room attendant at the Fairmont Royal York and Vice President of UNITE HERE Local 75 which represents hotel workers. "These global giants are reporting profitable years in 2010 and into the future. As the people who make these hotels work, we want to share in that economic recovery. We refuse to have the hotels 'lock in the recession' for workers."

Many hotels have shortened shifts, introduced split shifts (e.g. a breakfast and dinner shift with no pay in between), brought in 'beck and call' hyper-flexible scheduling and increased the use of part-timers, all of which have caused workers to lose income and benefits. Other schemes, such as the 'fake green choice' program at Toronto Sheraton, purport to help guests save the environment but are intended to reduce housekeeping services and room attendants. "How can you get a second job or raise a family in dignity and security with these types of draconian measures," added Phillips.

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