VANCOUVER -- Hospitality workers at a federal quarantine hotel in Richmond are threatening to go on strike, unless the government takes action to protect their jobs.
Union president Zailda Chan from Unite Here Local 40 said at a news conference Thursday afternoon the 72-hour notice needed before a legal strike had ended, and staff could strike at any time. She and more than a dozen coworkers spoke to media outside the Pacific Gateway Hotel, minutes away from Vancouver International Airport.
"We will be escalating job action at this hotel in response to their aggressive tactics to crush the majority female workforce at this hotel,” said Chan.
The union said the hotel plans to fire “most of its laid-off workforce” this month, which includes immigrant women who have worked there for as long as 45 years.
The federal government has been using the Pacific Gateway as a quarantine hotel since last spring.
Chan and several other employees directly questioned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his role in the federal government’s quarantine hotel program.
“Why is Prime Minister Trudeau’s government subsidizing a hotel that fires mothers and grandmothers?” she asked.
Chan accused the hotel’s owner, PHI Hotel Group, of trying to slow down progress female employees have made, which she says the federal government made worse by funding the hotel.
“How does the federal and provincial government stand by and do nothing? How do they let the hotel industry get away with mistreatment of workers over and over again? This is not the 19th century, it’s the 21st century,” she said.
Chan said Ottawa contracted the Red Cross do their jobs, instead of training long-term women and other staff to clean rooms and deliver meals in a quarantine environment.
Elisa Cardona, a laid-off hostess at the hotel explained the difficult choices she is forced to make each month, after having been out of work for nearly a full year.
“I’m still unemployed and EI isn’t enough to cover our necessities. I have to choose between paying rent and hydro, or pay for rent and groceries,” said Cardona.
The Pacific Gateway Hotel’s media contact had not returned requests for an interview at the time of publishing.
“We gave the best years of our lives to our hotel, and now, we’re on the verge of losing everything we’ve worked so hard for,” Cardona said.
