Professional golfers attending the Presidents Cup in Montreal are likely to encounter not only autograph-seeking amateurs, but also union members waving signs and chanting slogans at the door of their hotel.
Employees at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, the event’s host hotel, launched a seven-day strike on Wednesday morning to pressure the employer to move forward with negotiations.
“When you want to use pressure tactics, when arguments at the bargaining table are no longer enough to make the employer listen to reason, the ultimate means left is a strike,” said Michel Valiquette, spokesperson for the hotel sector of the CSN’s Fédération du commerce.
An avoidable conflict
The CSN has between 700 and 800 members at the hotel, and they had used up their 120-hour strike allowance, giving themselves a mandate that could include an indefinite general strike. While their goal is to achieve the same gains as their colleagues at the Hilton Laval, who voted in favor of an agreement earlier this week, the strike is the result of the employees’ inability to obtain a demonstration of flexibility from the employer, according to Valiquette.
“Queen Elizabeth management had the opportunity to avoid this conflict because we were in negotiations last Friday. The union’s proposal was to guarantee that there would be no strike during the Presidents Cup weekend, provided that the employer withdrew its numerous demands for rollbacks.
“We weren’t even talking about moving forward in terms of bargaining, but simply that the employer withdraw their demands for a setback, which they didn’t agree to. They didn’t even reply to us,” said Valiquette.
Some thirty hotels in the Montreal, Quebec City, Eastern Townships and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean regions are involved in coordinated bargaining. Unionized workers at three of them — the Bonaventure and Double Tree hotels in Complexe Desjardins, Montreal, and the PUR hotel in Quebec City — are on unlimited general strike, but unionized workers at all the hotels have strike mandates in hand, either to go as far as an unlimited general strike, or banks of strike hours or days to be used sporadically.
Domino effect sought
The Fédération du commerce de la CSN hopes that the agreement reached at the Laval Hilton will serve as a model for other establishments. Its members obtained wage increases of 21 per cent over four years, including 10 per cent in the first year, as well as gains in tip protection, group insurance, training and vacation entitlements.
Union members are now hoping that a domino effect can spread to all their establishments, explains Valiquette.
“The Hilton Laval union has paved the way for the other 29 unions participating in the coordinated bargaining round. So, now, hoteliers know the height of the settlement, they know where we want to land, and our people are determined to get the same conditions as at the Laval Hilton.”
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews