An interview with UNITE-HERE ex-hotel worker and community organizer
Youth on the Front Lines
By Asad Ali
(Rebel Youth, Fall/Winter 2007)
Have you ever eaten at a restaurant, or
stayed in a hotel? If you answered yes you’ve probably used part
of Canada’s $1.5 trillion tourism industry, over 40% of which is in
Ontario and half of that (1) enters through Niagara, leaving Niagara
Falls with a $700 million tourism industry of its own (2). According
to StatsCan the Canadian tourism industry has an 18% profit rate (3),
but is classified as the lowest paid (4). The second biggest
employer of hotel workers in Niagara Falls (5) is Canadian Niagara
Hotels (CNH), and the hotel workers with UNITE-HERE 2347 at the
flagship Sheraton at the Falls have been fighting to defend their
basic rights and contract since CNH bought it in 1993.
In 2006 an arbitrator was so affected
by the disparity between the union’s and management’s proposed
contract that he ruled that UNITE-HERE’s proposal would become the
actual contract. CNH has continued its campaign of intimidation,
however, and attacked the right to an 8-hour shift by splitting it so
that the last 2 hours have to be done after a 2-hour window.
Michelle Hemmingson, an activist and steward at the hotel, was fired
and is now helping to keep the fight going as an organizer with Local
2347. Ethan Clarke is the Community Organizer for the local.
RY: What are some of the ways you’ve
gotten support?
MH: I delivered a speech to some of the
other union locals. They were really disgusted with how I was
personally treated. They thought our (situation) was really bizarre
and they realized that if we didn’t gather more of the other hotels
they would become very similar. CNH is leading the way, the other
ones follow in their footsteps
RY: Do the people working at CNH see it
as the flagship?
MH: They know that their wages are much
better off than anybody because when we get it (the contract)
settled, the other ones will bump them up a little bit just to stay
within reach.
RY: What’s been the role of younger
members in the hotel?
MH: In the hotel industry in the summer
it’s really busy and they do hire a lot of students. In
housekeeping we have maybe 10 senior girls who have been there 9 or
more years. Management would expect more from seniors. They know
the seniors are staying, they want them to be above standard. But
they know with the younger ones they can just use them. If they
don’t do perfect that's fine, they’re just here for one season.
RY: How did this effect getting
everyone to work together?
MH: Most of that was done by the more
senior people who stuck around because we do it (arbitration) in the
off season in January, but it did drag on until July. They said
“here’s our (management’s version) collective agreement, if you
sign it we’ll give you a $100 signing bonus”. So they brought in
the Ministry of Labour to hold the vote, and I know the people inside
said why would we want to vote yes on this if we can take a chance
and actually get the union contract through arbitration
Management tried not to let us go when
we wanted to (go to the management-organized vote). I tried to go on
my break at 10:15 and I was told I was only allowed to go on my lunch
break, 12:00. There were five of us who were told they couldn’t go
and so we all gathered at 12:00 and went together anyway.
RY: When management attacked the union
by splitting shifts what are some of the ways you kept members
together?
MH: I purposefully worked that shift
for a week just to see what it was like. What we tried to do on the
inside was get as many members to say “yes I will work a split
shift” just to see what they (management) would do. We had maybe
ten at the most the first day and after that I think maybe half of
them dropped out. People said “we’re sitting here from 8:30 in
the morning till 8 at night and we'd like to help but we can't do
it.”
When I went there and did my split
shift to get the documentation of what kind of work we’d be doing,
what they said was “work for six hours and then go off the
property”. Couldn’t stay in the lunch room, we had to leave the
property. I live in Welland, a 30 minute drive, and I have a four
and a half year old son right now, so I would drive home after my
shift, eat dinner, and come back. It was really a stretched week for
me.
My last 2 hours of work they told me
I’d be doing four more rooms. It didn’t turn out that way, there
were no more rooms left. There were four of us left and three girls
were given the option to either wash down guest room doors on two
floors, sweep down the stairs different days, and one day they were
to clean the elevator section.
I was given the job to go to the
kitchen staff bathroom and clean the bathroom which nobody seemed to
have done on a regular basis. It took me two shifts to clean three
bathrooms. Their walls were yellow; people didn’t seem to know how
to pick up a toilet seat. I don’t know how they got away with it
health and safety standards-wise.
How come I clean the bathrooms and
other girls are washing doors? And they were like “oh that’s
just what you got to do”. They pulled anything they could
together. Sometimes we would be waiting 15 minutes just to see what
we would do. They didn’t (plan for us to work the split shift) and
when I questioned the executive housekeeper at a meeting one time,
“how come I can’t do that work from 3:30-5:30, why does it have
to be split?”, she said “that’s just the way things are.”
People were really, really annoyed and
I think right now it’s the busy season and they had (pressured)
everybody to sign saying “I am willing to work 6 hour shifts”
(rather then the eight they are entitled to). They’re short
staffed again and people are saying “I'm only doing six.”
It’s hard work being a room
attendant. “We need you to work eight hours Sunday” but on
Monday “oh we only need you for six.” Morning or even at noon
they’ll come and ask you, I’m like “no you should have
scheduled me, I have a life outside work, people have childcare
arrangements.”
Eventually they are going to realize,
we should give them 8 hours.
EC: We figured that the difference is
$480/month between a 30 and 40 hour week.
RY: What are some of the issues you
experience as a woman working at the hotel?
MH: I was on the health and safety
committee and being a woman (whenever) I would suggest they should do
something differently, it was sort of just like shrug it off, “it’s
not a health and safety issue, you shouldn’t really worry about
it”. I was like “yeah, it technically is.”
RY: What are some of the reasons people
say we have to take a stand here?
MH: What I always hear from the workers
is the reason we put up with it is because of the pay. They’re one
of the best paying hotels, a lot of them are saying they just want to
basically work and go home, they don’t want to deal with the dramas
that are going on inside. The majority are saying they just want to
come to work and go home and just get their job done.
We have problems where we’re
constantly out of sheets, and that puts us behind and they still just
say “I just want to come to work and do my job”. Well how can
you come to work if you don’t have the proper supplies? But “I
don’t want to deal with it” and at the end of the day people stay
late just to finish. We don’t know if they get paid or not, they
don’t want to deal with the hassle but why work for free?
EC: Part of the contract we’ve been
awarded says $100 dollars is to be paid out (to members on signing).
CNH’s response was that it’s the union’s contract so the union
should pay it (!). One of the most creative responses I’ve ever
heard. When the boss takes 100 bucks out of their pocket, and the
response is “I don’t want to make trouble”. We did manage to
get a portion of the membership to sign a grievance on that.
(The experience with CNH is) slow down,
slow down the grievance process. We had one person who got fired for
stealing a piece of cake, it took two years to fight that. We do win
things, it just takes a long time.
RY: what were some of the ways you were
able to member-to-member get people on board for the signing bonus?
MH: I took a sheet and said we’re
filing a grievance, we just need your signatures and explained
everything to them, and then we got the majority. They thought the
union should pay half and the company should pay half, because that’s
what they were hearing. I was like “do you realize where the union
gets their money from? It’s from your dues, so if you expect your
union to pay you it’s like you taking money from your left pocket
for your right pocket. The big steel companies they get their
signing bonuses, the union’s not paying it. It’s the company
who’s making the millions.”
RY: What are some of the first steps
you recommend to other people who are in a similar situation?
MH: Don’t go out on a limb on your
own, take everything slow. Don’t jump into something (where) you
really don’t know what you’re doing. Ask for some training (from
a union), ask a union rep definitely. Don’t do anything on the
spur of the moment, think of the outcome.
When they rush into it they don’t
realize they shouldn’t be doing it on work time when they’re
investigating something or trying to get people to sign a petition.
They don’t realize they could actually get into trouble from the
company. People just starting out don’t realize stuff like that,
they’re like “yeah I am doing union stuff I can do it at work”.
No you can’t!
It’s very unpredictable. You could
think just because you show up at a rally they’re not going to do
anything because it was your day off, and then you walk back in and
get a 5 day suspension for the smallest thing that you violated in
their company handbook.
I would always expect the HR manager to
find a loophole. It’s like we won the contract, we won the 8 hour
shift: “yeah you can have the eight hour shift but they’re
split!” But as you stand together I think you should be able to
overcome those obstacles.
RY: What can people do to help?
MH: We don’t want to boycott.
EC: We would like people to go to
Niagara Hotels, hear the stories of the workers, let CNH know you
care how their workers are treated. If you’re in Niagara Falls
talk to the workers directly. If you’re not, write to let the
workers know that you’re hearing about their story (5914 Main St.,
Niagara Falls, ON L2G 5Z8). It can be e-mail (eclarke@unitehere.ca).
Also follow our web site (www.niagarahotelworkers.ca/).
RY: What are some of the ways to
survive when under attack, any tips you can give our readers?
MH: Just contact a union even if you
are not one (a member). First I’d say don’t react by getting
angry, trying think of ways to screw the employer, because you don’t
want to do that. You don’t want to ruin your chance. Definitely
don’t want to be insubordinate, do what they tell you anyway and
then think of options that you have like options a, b, or c. Talk to
your coworkers then go with the best decision that you guys come up
with.
EC: Be strategic and work collectively.
RY: Is there anything else you would
like our readers to know?
MH: From what I hear the other ones
(hotels) are actually decent employers, management actually works
together with the employees. They’re not barking commands, they’re
trying to make work a happy little place to be.
RY: They let someone else do the dirty
work for them?
MH: That’s exactly it
----
Sources:
1. “Quick Facts Sheet – Deputy
Ministers Meeting”, Regional Municipality of Niagara, June 28,
2000.
2. City of Niagara Falls,
http://www.niagarafalls.ca/business/business_profile/tourism.asp
3. “Cross-sectional analyses of
performance and structure for Canada’s hotel industry” (#43),
Gaston Levesque, Ministry of Industry, 2003.
4. “Job Quality continues to slide -
Canada’s economy sheds another 12,000 manufacturing jobs in May”,
Canadian Labour Congress, June 8, 2007.
5. City of Niagara Falls,
http://www.niagarafalls.ca/business/business_profile/professional_services.asp
