Workers angry at employers and union

Workers angry at employers and union
By Dan Hilborn, Burnaby NOW assistant editor
Published Oct. 6, 2002

About a dozen unionized kitchen workers at the Kings' Best Western Inn on Kingsway in Burnaby are in shock after being given four days' notice that they were being laid-off with no severance pay this week.
Louise Pinder, a former shop steward and kitchen supervisor at the 21- year-old hotel on Kingsway, said she and her fellow workers are not convinced by company arguments that the lay-offs are the result of a continent-wide slowdown in the hospitality industry.
"None of us are really sure what happened, but they say that due to Sept. 11 (last year's terrorist attacks in the United States), business is just crashing," she said. "I know it was hurting on the hotel side, but I don't necessarily believe it was the whole business."
Pinder and other former employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, are particularly upset their union, the BC Government and Service Employees Union, was unable to protect their jobs or lessen the hardship of the abrupt lay-offs.
While labour standards typically call for two weeks' notice before a layoff takes effect, that was overridden by a clause in the workers' union contract which allows the company only 48 hours notice if it is closing an entire department.
"It's a sad situation," said Pinder, a 15-year veteran of the hotel's restaurant, most recently known as Joe's Place. "This was a viable business that I believe was just mishandled."
While she admitted the hotel was losing clientele to more modern facilities such as the Hilton Metrotown-Vancouver, which has been offering substantial room discounts to build its clientele, Pinder also believes her former employer did not make a serious effort to attract new customers.
"We had a really good crew of workers who had lots of ideas for rebuilding the business, like offering drink specials, brunches and doing more advertising, but he (the owner) wouldn't go for it."
Jack Pascoe, manager of the hotel, offered a terse "no comment" when asked for the reasons behind the kitchen closure. However, when asked if the rest of the business was in trouble, he said: "No, the business is not in jeopardy whatsoever. What happened was done ... no. There's no comment."