On Nov. 9, Heritage Inn hotels provided a release to media as a public update on their negotiations with UFCW Local 1400, but the union’s president says the release doesn’t tell the whole story.
“We are not on strike — we’ve been locked out,” said Lucia Flack Figueiredo, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1400, which represents locked-out workers at both the Saskatoon and Moose Jaw locations.
“At the end of the day, the employer can say at any time, ‘the lockout is done, come back to work, we’re going to continue to bargain.’ But they chose to lock us out rather than have us bargain while we’re at work, and that to me is indicative of … they want to try to push to get the concessions they’re looking for. And at some point, we can’t accept any more concessions.”
The media release from Heritage Inn hotels states that since summer (the lockout began on Sep. 7), “negotiations have stalled with The Union, however close to 80 per cent of employees remain working.”
The Heritage Inn release goes on to say that government-assisted mediated bargain for Saskatoon ended in June, and in July for the Moose Jaw location.
“It was not until October 2023 that the Heritage Inn hotels received a comprehensive offer from the UFCW,” the release stated. “As of current, negotiations for a Moose Jaw collective agreement have not resumed as the Union made the decision to negotiate the Saskatoon collective agreement first. Heritage Inn hotels was not consulted on this decision to move ahead with Saskatoon first. Both hotels are priorities for Heritage Inn hotels.”
Heritage Inn Hotels said they submitted a “comprehensive counterproposal” for Saskatoon on Nov. 3 and are now “actively waiting on a reply from The Union. Heritage Inn hotels has proposed three dates in early December to resume bargaining.”
The employer also said they are committed to continuing amicable discussions with UFCW Local 1400 and are looking forward to a resolution.
“I’m surprised at their statements,” Figueiredo told MooseJawToday.com. “Some of it is accurate, but it makes it sound different than what it is. We’ve been asking them to bargain non-stop, because we want a resolution for the picket line.”
Figueiredo said she and the union are prepared to bargain every day, if necessary, until a deal is reached — it is the employer who has delayed their availability, she asserted. The union is prepared to make concessions to the collective agreement (such as the loss of dental benefits, difficult as that is), but there remain three major sticking points that Figueiredo doesn’t feel the union can back down on.
“The biggest concession that we’re trying to get the employer to take off the table is that they want to delete all full-time jobs out of the hotels. So, they want to have just part-time workers,” she explained.
Figueiredo said the employer also wants union members to agree to a scheduling model that will allow them to average hours in a two-week period.
“I’m familiar with these proposals, but I typically see them when they also have the corresponding guarantee, so ‘I’ve got 80 hours in two weeks, I guarantee that you’re going to be scheduled in them.' … Without that corresponding guarantee, what this is specifically designed for is to make sure they can utilize part-time workers up to 10 hours a day, in a block of time, without paying them overtime.”
Lastly, Figueiredo said, the union wants pay raises above the legally mandated minimum wage, and Heritage Inn Hotels will not agree to that.
“We’re looking at inflationary rates that are extremely high right now, and these people are making $14 an hour,” she said. She added that the picketers are staying strong, and community support has been outstanding, but of course everyone would prefer to be working while bargaining continues.
“I think (the timing of this media release) was strategic, and maybe it’s trying to generate some sympathy. … It is not traditional bargaining, and it’s not in the tone of what they presented.”
