Hundreds of former Pan Pacific Hotel workers are hoping that a BC Supreme Court justice will certify a class action lawsuit against the hotel’s owner, Ocean Pacific Hotels Ltd., for wrongfully terminating them during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Romuel Escobar, who had worked at the hotel for 24 years before being terminated in August, filed court documents January 20 to start the process to get that necessary certification, and he seeks damages for wrongful or constructive dismissal, as well as aggravated and punitive damages for alleged “dishonesty.”
The notice of civil claim alleges that hotel management intentionally led its non-union, hourly workers to believe that they could return to work when management knew that this was not the case.
The hotel allegedly employed about 450 workers before the pandemic, including 63 salaried employees, 254 hourly workers, and 126 staff who were on call. The proposed class action aims to represent all current and former hourly employees.
Management laid off most of its salaried workers in mid-March, in accordance with those workers’ employment contracts, according to Escobar.
Contracts with hourly workers allowed management to simply stop scheduling shifts, which is what they did, given that hotel occupancy dropped precipitously as the pandemic spread and governments urged people not to travel.
Escobar claims that hourly workers were then terminated in batches of slightly less than 50 at a time, and during a time period slightly more than two months, in order not to trigger legal requirements for higher compensation that would be due to workers were mass terminations all to happen at once.
He also alleges that hourly workers were offered $250 to become classed as casual workers, instead of regular workers, on the belief that accepting the new designation would help them save their jobs.
There were 93 employees who took management up on the offer of going to casual status, but this did not stop management from terminating them, Escobar alleged.
The union Unite Here Local 40 entered the fray during the summer, when there was a union-organizing drive, according to Escobar. He alleges that when hotel management learned of the drive, it terminated 42 people who it believed to be union supporters on the same day that employees were voting on whether to join the union.
None of Escobar's allegations has been proven in court.
BIV spoke with Pan Pacific Hotel general manager Gary Collinge, but he said that he was not able to comment about the lawsuit and workers' attempt to launch a class action because it pertained to personnel matters, which are confidential.
Unite Here Local 40 represents unionized workers at the Westin Bayshore, Hyatt Regency, Pinnacle Harbourfront and Hotel Georgia hotels, and led a strike for better compensation at those properties in 2019.
While it does not officially represent workers at the Pan Pacific Hotel, the local’s president, Zailda Chan, told media in a January 20 Zoom call that she has heard stories from hotel workers across the sector who say hotel companies are using the pandemic as an excuse to fire long-term staff.
“The worst example we have seen is the Pan Pacific Vancouver Hotel,” she said. “The workers, many of them long term, some with over 20 years on the job, were misled, wrongfully terminated without cause, and were cheated out of pay owed to them for their years of service.”
She estimated that damages in the proposed class action lawsuit could be around $3 million.
Chan added that unionized hotels have not treated workers better than the Pan Pacific because management at those hotels, during negotiations, have proposed cutting healthcare benefits, pension benefits and other compensation. She did not rule out potential future legal action against those hotels.
The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has walloped the hotel sector and made many operations unsustainable.
BC Hotel Association president and CEO Ingrid Jarrett told BIV that her $3.2 billion industry, which pre-pandemic employed approximately 60,000 people to oversee 80,000 hotel rooms, has been ravaged, with occupancy of less than 30% at the end of 2020.
“That is a 60% drop from 2019,” she said. “We have 46% of properties reporting that if they don’t receive access to government-supported financing, they will not stay in business – and the timeline for that is between now and the end of March.”
