While there was news this afternoon that workers at the 245-room Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites in downtown Vancouver have issued 72-hour strike notice, so far 2024 has not been a particularly big year for work stoppages in B.C.
The Holiday Inn workers join hundreds of counterparts at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver, the Pinnacle Harbourfront and the Westin Bayshore who are also without a contract and are demanding higher wages and better working conditions. Richmond hotel workers at the Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel have been on strike more than a year.
Overall, however, B.C. has seen comparatively few work stoppages.
Across Canada, there were a staggering 665 work stoppages in effect in the first six months of 2024, according to new data from Employment and Social Development Canada, which counts as a work stoppage any strike or lockout that lasts at least 10 days.
That compares with 778 work stoppages across Canada in the full calendar year of 2023 – by far the record for a calendar year within the past decade.
While many of those stoppages may have continued from last year, and therefore were counted in both years, this is a very high number of strikes or lockouts in the country.
In the period between 2015 and 2022, the year with the highest number of work stoppages in Canada was 2015, with 237, or nearly one-third the number of strikes that took place in the first six months of this year.
Data for B.C. shows five work stoppages in effect in the first six months of 2024. This compares with a total of 10 such stoppages in 2023, 12 in 2022 and 15 in 2021.
B.C.’s workforce is far less unionized than it was decades ago, but disruptive strikes and work stoppages take place with regularity.
The percentage of British Columbians who were unionized in their main job in 2022 was 28.6 per cent, down from 43.3 per cent in 1981, according to Statistics Canada.
Sometimes the stoppages significantly jar the provincial economy, which can deter future corporate investments. Other times they disrupt visitors’ travel plans, souring their perception of the province and potentially dissuading future tourists from booking trips.
Stikes have impact on investment flows
Good news this summer is that the Port of Vancouver’s operations are running smoothly.
Ship and dock foremen called off a strike slated for July 8, after the Canada Industrial Relations Board found that the union's strike notice violated the Canada Labour Code.
That dispute between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Ship and Dock Foremen Local 514 and port operator DP World remains unresolved, however, and fears remain that the union could get to a position where it is legally able to strike in the coming months.
That dispute stems largely from the port operator telling the union that it would start to automate loading and unloading cargo containers at its Centerm facility at the Port of Vancouver.
The specter of a work stoppage at the port brings back memories for many of last summer’s 13-day strike port strike between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the BC Maritime Employers Association. That spat involved 7,400 workers and froze an estimated $10 billion worth of trade at Canada’s busiest port.
Transport Canada said in a Parliamentary report released in April that the 2023 strike at the Port of Vancouver reduced Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) by between $730 million and $980 million.
“Prolonged disruptions to critical supply-chain infrastructure damages Canada’s reputation as a stable and reliable trading partner,” the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters wrote in a letter to the Parliamentary committee investigating the strike.
Inflation has been a driving force instigating other strikes, Central 1 Credit Union chief economist Bryan Yu told BIV.
Year-over-year inflation hit a 39-year-high of 8.1 per cent in June 2022, and while it has slowed significantly to be below three per cent in recent months, many workers have not achieved the wage gains to keep pace with rising prices.
That encouraged them to strike, he said.
“The economy is slowing,” Yu added, before explaining that the likelihood of strikes is less in weaker economic times.
“We're not going to see as much of that labour pressure going forward,” he said.
Work stoppages can also hurt tourism
The uncertainty that comes with work stoppages does more than damage a country’s reputation for being a reliable trading partner.
It can also lead potential foreign visitors to think twice about booking their trips.
That hurts B.C.’s tourism sector, which BC Stats in March estimated to be worth $18.5 billion in 2022, with 154,366 jobs hanging in the balance.
Workers at airlines and at hotel chains have been involved in recent work stoppages.
About 2,000 workers are in bargaining for a new contract at three downtown Vancouver hotels: Hyatt Regency, Pinnacle Harbourfront and Westin Bayshore.
Many of those workers unexpectedly held a one-day strike outside the Hyatt hotel on July 16, no doubt disturbing guests with noise and the necessity to cross a picket line.
Workers at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites in downtown Vancouver will be in a position to take strike action effective Monday (July 29).
One strategy workers use to exact maximum hardship on an employer is to suddenly go on strike at the most inopportune time, or one that inconveniences customers the most. This is peak season for Vancouver's hotel sector.
WestJet’s aircraft maintenance engineers similarly used this tactic when they went on a two-day strike during the July long weekend that caused WestJet to cancel many hundred flights.
Their move came despite former federal Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan ordering the union and employer to binding arbitration on the Friday before that weekend – a move that many travellers falsely believed would halt flight disruptions.
In May, WestJet narrowly avoided a strike by pilots in its regional airline Encore.
Air Canada (TSX:AC) pilots, meanwhile, may also threaten to go on strike.
The Air Line Pilots Association, representing more than 5,000 Air Canada pilots, said last month that it is not close to agreeing to a deal with the employer, despite about a year of contract negotiations, including nearly six months of voluntary mediation.
“It is a concern,” Destination Vancouver CEO Royce Chwin told BIV, referring to that potential strike as well as any other labour disruptions in the tourism sector.
“It's important that people recognize businesses are still digging themselves out of the impacts of the pandemic. They're not in the clear yet, and they still won't be for years to come. Anything that disrupts the movement or flow of people into a destination that supports a visitor economy is a concern.”
Hotel workers at the Sheraton Vancouver Airport Hotel in Richmond launched a strike more than a year ago, demanding better pay and working conditions.
The contentious strike continues with twists, such as that some employees who have gone back to work and some employees who are still on strike formed a new union.
They claimed that the previous union, Unite Here Local 40, was not bargaining in good faith.
BC Hotel Association CEO Ingrid Jarrett told BIV that she did not want to speak about specific labour disputes.
“We know that some of our members, and their employees, are really frustrated with the situation and they just want to get on with the process of fair bargaining,” she said.
“I'm hopeful that everyone will put the interest of the employees at the heart of what they do.”
Both Chwin and Jarrett said they believe that labour disruptions have not caused a black eye for B.C.’s tourism sector.
Most travellers, they said, look at a range of things when planning vacations and the deterrent of a potential strike happening where they are going is likely to be far down on their list of priorities.
What is more likely to deter visitors coming to B.C. could be that Vancouver in May had the highest occupancy rate among large Canadian metropolises, at 83.9 per cent, according to CoStar, a global provider of real estate data, analytics and news.
That can make finding a hotel room hard to find.
Other CoStar data showed that hoteliers in the region were able to charge the highest average daily room rate in Canada in May: $317.41.
That rate could get a lot higher as summer progresses.
In July 2023, Vancouver hotel rooms charged an average $347.08 daily rate, which was the highest figure that CoStar had ever recorded for a major city in Canada.
CoStar's national director of hospitality analytics, Laura Baxter, told BIV that there is "every possibility" that Metro Vancouver this summer will set a new record for the highest-ever average daily room rate for a city in Canada within a calendar month.
