Time will tell if components of a recent contract for workers in Kitimat will set a precedent for hotel workers in Metro Vancouver.
The Kitimat workers at Cedar Valley Lodge on July 22 voted unanimously to ratify a new one-year collective agreement that secured wage gains up to 40 per cent, according to union Unite Here Local 40.
The vote averted a strike.
Workers at three Vancouver hotels - the Hyatt Regency, the Westin Bayshore and Pinnacle Harbourfront - are in the same union as counterparts at the Cedar Valley Lodge, and are in negotiations with management for a new contract.
Workers at those Vancouver hotels earlier this month voted 65 per cent to authorize strike action.
Other workers represented by Unite Here Local 40 are at Richmond's Sheraton Vancouver Airport and Radisson Blu Vancouver Airport hotels. Those workers have been on strike since June in what is a bitter conflict that has involved the employers suing the union for workers making excessive noise, and the union achieving cease-and-desist orders from the B.C. Labour Board because the employers were deemed to have broken B.C.'s Labour Code.
Cedar Valley Lodge workers are entitled to immediate wage increases of $5 per hour, with maintenance staff at the property receiving an immediate 10% pay increase, according to the union.
The lodge is a large operation, with 450 workers. It accommodates up to 5,000 LNG camp workers involved in the area's pipeline project. Unite Here Local 40 claims that the lodge's workers were the construction site's lowest paid workers.
Sticking points in the negotiations at the Vancouver hotels also include pay rates, though it is not clear exactly how big a raise the union is seeking.
Workers there also want increased job security, said Harris and Co. partner Israel Chafetz, who represents the employers through the Greater Vancouver Hotel Employers' Association.
"There's a gap between the parties that is yet to be bridged, and our belief is we should keep bargaining and reach a deal," he told BIV earlier this month. "That is our intention."
