On September 7, Heritage Inn Hotels locked out 85 workers at locations in Saskatoon and Moose Jaw over months-long disagreements in negotiating a new collective agreement.
The workers are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers' union (UFCW Canada), Local 1400 branch. UFCW is one of Canada's largest private-sector unions, representing nearly a quarter-million workers across the country — in Saskatchewan, Local 1400 has more than 6,000 members.
MooseJawToday.com spoke with the management of the Heritage Inn Hotel & Convention Centre in Moose Jaw and were informed that an official press release outlining the employer's position is on its way. However, the release had not been received by deadline.
A press release from UFCW Canada Local 1400 claims that:
"Heritage Inn Hotels are demanding unreasonable and unfair concessions from their workers: they demand that benefits and protections in current agreements be removed entirely. The workers have negotiated for many years to earn these benefits, like vision, dental and sick pay, and do not deserve for them to be removed.
"Hotel workers include housekeepers, front desk staff, banquet servers, cooks, and more. It is frequently backbreaking work for very low pay – hospitality workers were front-line workers during the pandemic, putting their health at risk to keep facilities clean and safe. The employer should be treating their workers with the respect they deserve."
Lucia Flack Figueiredo, president of UFCW Local 1400, asked for public help and solidarity in supporting the locked out Heritage Inn workers, and called their treatment "disrespectful."
“These locked out workers are the same workers that were asked to risk their health and safety during the COVID pandemic, and now the employer wants to put them on the street,” Figueiredo said. "We are asking for the public's support by not crossing the picket line and ensuring that these workers can protect their benefits,” says Figueiredo. “The workers at Heritage Inn are hard-working members of their communities and love their jobs — they deserve a better deal than this disrespectful treatment.”
UFCW 1400 said that Heritage Inn Hotels is tying wages to the Saskatchewan minimum wage and wants to limit possible increases over the next seven years — the span of the new collective agreement — to a maximum of $0.83 per hour. They said the company has not even made an offer for workers to vote on, and is refusing any concessions on keeping existing employment benefits in place.
“Heritage Inn Hotels need to understand that they are not just locking out a handful of workers in Saskatoon and Moose Jaw,” said Paul Meinema, president of UFCW Canada National. “They are facing one of the biggest private-sector unions in North America. The workers at Heritage Inn Hotels are backed up with the strength of UFCW Canada and the International Union, and our members at Heritage Inn Hotels have our full support in getting the fairness and respect they so deserve.”
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