“Kicking Ass for the Working Class”: Hotel Workers in Niagara

Although Niagara Falls has always been a popular tourist destination, the city’s local economy relied primarily on manufacturing from the early 1900s well into the post-war period. While the Welland Canal facilitated industrial expansion in St. Catharines, Welland, Thorold, and Port Colborne, it was the advent of cheap hydroelectric power that spurred the development of industry in Niagara Falls, with industrial unions following shortly thereafter.

When the Niagara Falls and District Labour Council was founded in 1956, it comprised eighteen affiliated union locals representing approximately three thousand members.¹ At its peak in the mid-1970s, the Labour Council represented roughly ten thousand members through twenty-nine affiliated unions — the largest being CUPE Local 1000, which represented five hundred workers at Ontario Hydro.² The Labour Council played a key advocacy role for unemployed workers and injured workers, had representatives on a variety of city committees, and worked closely with community groups like the United Way in order to improve the lives of working people. It provided financial assistance to various charities and presented briefs to City Council on matters of both local and national importance. Its most impressive achievement was the development of the Niagara Falls Unemployed Help Centre in the early 1980s.

The advent of free trade hit the industrial sector in Niagara Falls particularly hard in the late 1980s. The Ford Glass plant, Gerber, Cyanamid, the Norton Company, and Chef Boyardee all closed their doors and headed south, leaving thousands of local workers unemployed. While industrial unions pushed for tougher plant closure laws that would yield better separation benefits for workers, they also looked to the tourism industry as an area of potential growth. The hotel and hospitality industry in Niagara Falls, although long-standing, was barely unionized. The seasonal and casual nature of the industry, coupled with the limited number of workers in each potential bargaining unit, rendered organizing difficult. Although Local 442 of the Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) had been representing workers in Niagara Falls since 1942, the union was quite small and represented only a relatively minor fraction of tourism workers, rendering it weak at the bargaining table.

In April 1993, local businessman Dino DiCienzo gained control of a significant portion of the city’s hotel industry by purchasing a group of three prominent hotels in the Clifton Hill tourist area: the Skyline Brock, the Foxhead, and the Village Inn.³ Along with the new hotels, DiCienzo inherited about two hundred union members who worked at the hotels — all members of HERE Local 442. Labour relations between the union and the previous hotel owners had been quite harmonious. In fact, longtime Local 442 President James Whyte told the Niagara Falls Review that the hotels had not experienced a strike since 1940.⁴ However, all of this was about to change dramatically.

DiCienzo’s new group of hotels, operating as Canadian Niagara Hotels, received a major boost when the provincial government decided to open a temporary casino in the Clifton Hill tourist area. Not only were all three hotel properties adjacent to the proposed site for the casino, but DiCienzo also owned the land where the casino was eventually built and thus became the operation’s landlord. In anticipation of the opening of Casino Niagara in 1996, DiCienzo invested heavily in upgrading and expanding his hotel empire through the addition of a food court and a Hard Rock Café directly adjacent to Casino Niagara. This expansion indirectly benefitted Local 442 because it required the company to hire more employees, thus potentially swelling the ranks of the union. However, when Canadian Niagara Hotels opened the Terrace Food Court and the Hard Rock Café in December 1996, the company made it clear that it preferred to operate non-union when it rebuffed Local 442’s attempt to assert bargaining rights for the company’s newest workers. Local 442 argued that the scope clause in its collective agreement with Canadian Niagara Hotels covered all employees of the company within the City of Niagara Falls, but the company argued that the union’s contract only covered employees working in the existing hotels.⁵ Unable to resolve the dispute, Local 442 threatened legal action at the OLRB. Faced with no reasonable prospect of winning the eventual legal challenge at the board, Canadian Niagara Hotels begrudgingly recognized the union as the bargaining agent for workers at both the Terrace Food Court and the Hard Rock Café. The episode contributed to the creation of a chilly relationship between a fledgling labour union seeking to expand its clout and a growing company that saw the union as an impediment to the maximization of profit.

Relations between the union and the company became strained over the course of the next few years. In September 1998, Local 442 merged with its much bigger Toronto-based sister, HERE Local 75, which represented workers at a number of large and prominent hotels in that city, including the Royal York. The leadership of Local 442 argued that, in order to combat an increasingly hostile employer, it needed the additional resources that only a bigger union could bring to the table.⁶

In October 1999, Local 75 entered into collective bargaining with Canadian Niagara Hotels. The increased size of the hotels had bolstered the size of the union, which had grown to roughly six hundred members, including room attendants, kitchen and restaurant staff, valet attendants, food court attendants, and front desk workers. Talks between the union and management broke down on 3 December 1999. A failed round of conciliation set the stage for a “no board” report, placing the union in a legal strike position and the employer in a legal lockout position as of 23 December 1999.

While reservation and front desk staff successfully concluded their collective agreement by a vote of 22 to 13 on 14 December 1999, other workers in the hotel were unwilling to settle for the management’s final offer, which included a proposal to split off the Terrace Food Court and the Hard Rock Café from the hotels, offering a one-year agreement for the latter worksites and a three-year agreement for the former.⁷ Recognizing the danger of management’s divide-and-conquer strategy, the union steadfastly refused to accept any proposal that would divide the workers by worksite. The workers rejected the final offer by a margin of 286 to 23, thus setting the stage for the first strike in the history of Canadian Niagara Hotels. The union chose 23 December 1999 as the strike deadline date. However, because winter is the down season for tourism in Niagara Falls, the union was not in a very strong position to hurt the company’s bottom line with a prolonged strike. The union therefore announced that it would organize 24-hour rotating strikes on December 28 and on New Year’s Eve, a particularly busy time at the hotels amid a slow winter season.

In response, management threatened a lockout — a rare tactic in the hospitality industry — and began organizing buses to transport replacement workers across union picket lines in the event of a prolonged strike.⁸ With tensions high, the union stepped up its response, organizing a demonstration on Falls Avenue in front of the Skyline Brock hotel on 18 December 1999. Hotel workers and their community allies marched and waved placards, while members of senior management observed the demonstration from the hotel’s elevated lobby window. Local MPP Peter Kormos addressed the picketers, declaring “It’s about bloody time you got to share in these new huge profits.”⁹

On 22 December 1999, both management and union negotiators met late into the night in a last-ditch attempt to resolve the dispute. In the early hours of 23 December 1999, both sides secured a three-year agreement that included wage increases and an improved benefits package. Most importantly, for the union, management backed away from its proposal to sever the bargaining unit so as to divide workers by worksite. The agreement was later ratified by union members by a vote of 260 to 19.¹⁰

Shortly after the contract was ratified, front desk and reservation staff at the hotels — many of whom identified more closely with management than with the room attendants and kitchen staff who provided the most solid support for the union — decertified Local 75. The union complained that hotel management had initiated the decertification campaign and expressed concern that members of the hotel management team were planning to work closely with a handful of anti-union employees to decertify the remaining bargaining units, one by one.¹¹ The union also complained that Canadian Niagara Hotels carried on business as if Local 75 did not even exist. Hotel management selectively applied provisions of the collective agreement, dismissed grievances out of hand, and targeted anyone who became active in the union. Management’s refusal to recognize the union’s legitimacy made it very difficult for Local 75 to justify its existence and thus build support among workers.

In November 2000, the anti-union provincial Conservative government introduced new legislation that required employers to post information in unionized workplaces on how to decertify a union. While the minister of Labour defended the legislation by arguing that the provincial government was simply informing workers of their rights, critics of the provincial government challenged his logic, arguing that the government’s position was hypocritical. “He is going to be posting in workplaces for employees who are unionized how to decertify, yet he will not be posting in a non-unionized location, how to certify,” complained Leah Casselman, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU).¹² In October 2002, three months before the expiry of the collective agreement negotiated in December 1999, anti-union workers, assisted by management, began circulating a petition to decertify Local 75.¹³ Once 40 percent of the workers had signed the petition to decertify the union, the OLRB conducted a workplace vote by secret ballot to determine the union’s fate. In a resounding show of support for the union, workers voted 359 to 96 in favour of keeping Local 75 as its bargaining agent.¹⁴

On 21 November 2002, members of Local 75 voted 69 percent in favour of rejecting management’s final offer and authorizing a strike.¹⁵ The final offer included yet another proposal to divide workers by worksite through the creation of three separate bargaining units: one for the hotels, one for the Hard Rock Café, and a third for the Terrace Food Court. Management’s union-busting strategy was based on the knowledge that workers at the Hard Rock Café and the Terrace Food Court were more likely to support efforts to decertify the union. Separating these two worksites from the comparatively larger hotel bargaining unit — where the union enjoyed overwhelming support — would weaken the union and thus make the task of decertifying the union easier to accomplish.

On 1 December 2002, Local 75 moved into a legal strike position. Three days later, hotel management fired two of the union’s five bargaining team members. In response, the union took to the streets on 6 December 2002 in what the Niagara Falls Review called “one of the first strikes in the history of Niagara Falls tourism.”¹⁶ Workers carried signs reading, “All we want for Christmas is a fair contract” and chanted, “I don’t know if you’ve been told, DiCienzo’s made of gold.”¹⁷ However, a significant number of workers crossed the picket line, prompting Gord Arbeau, director of marketing for Canadian Niagara Hotels, to tell local media, “We’ve proven that we can run business as usual, and I think that’s strengthened our resolve.”¹⁸

The company retaliated by cancelling the shifts of some of the workers who had participated in the one-day picket or had respected the picket lines. In response, the union filed unfair labour practice complaints against the company, charging that there had been over a hundred individual cases of retaliation against pro-union employees.¹⁹ The union also set up a cyber picket line in the form of a website that encouraged the public to avoid patronizing establishments in the Clifton Hill area owned by Canadian Niagara Hotels.²⁰ At the hotel, rumours swirled that hotel management, anticipating a long, drawn-out labour dispute, had already lined up replacement workers and had cleared several floors’ worth of rooms to house them for the duration of the strike so that they would not have to cross hostile picket lines.²¹

In the end, the replacement workers were not needed. On 13 and 14 December 2002, members of Local 75 voted 258 to 256 in favour of a second final offer from management, which came the day after the union’s one-day picket on 6 December. The offer provided slightly greater financial incentives, including a wage increase of 9 percent over three years. However, it retained the controversial union-busting provision to divide workers into multiple bargaining units, thereby inevitably setting the stage for future decertification attempts. The agreement also mandated a process of final offer selection for the next round of collective bargaining, which would prevent the parties involved from engaging in a strike or a lockout to settle the next contract. Instead, an arbitrator would choose between final offers made by the company and by the union. This second offer was ratified, although by a very narrow margin, despite the fact that the union’s bargaining team did not recommend support. Local 75 president Paul Clifford told the Niagara Falls Review: “I believe that the vote was more about the ability of relatively moderate income workers to sustain a long, protracted labour dispute.”²²

Despite the settlement, or perhaps because of it, tension between the union and Canadian Niagara Hotels remained high. Nearly a year later, in October 2003, Local 75 member Kim McQuillan, a banquet server at the Sheraton on the Falls, delivered a speech to a gathering of steelworkers who were holding a conference at the hotel. The steelworkers had heard about Local 75’s recent disputes with hotel management and invited McQuillan to shed some light on the situation. In her speech, McQuillan described the union’s prolonged struggle with Canadian Niagara Hotels, including the company’s recent attempts to decertify the union. She told the assembled steelworkers that her employer was a “powerhouse of profit” and explained that “money was no object to them in fighting to get rid of the union.”²³ Unimpressed by McQuillan’s speech, hotel management ushered her into a disciplinary meeting. She was later suspended without pay until she agreed to retract her speech and write a letter of apology. Unrepentant, McQuillan refused to apologize, and Local 75 filed a grievance against hotel management, insisting that union members were entitled to free speech. In response, the hotel’s owner launched a defamation lawsuit against McQuillan and the union officials who had helped her craft the speech.²⁴

Amid all the controversy and heightened labour-management tension, the union lost significant support in the workplace. Some of the workers who had participated in the rotating strikes in December 2002 complained that the union had caved in too easily, while others were upset that the union had initiated the strikes in the first place. In the wake of the labour dispute, Canadian Niagara Hotels was emboldened in its efforts to break the union. As a result, in July 2004, workers at the Hard Rock Café and the Terrace Food Court voted 57 to 34 to decertify Local 75.²⁵

Three years later, in July 2007, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice dismissed the defamation case against McQuillan, much to the delight of the union and its allies. In his decision, Justice Thomas Lederer ruled that the dispute arose directly from the employment relationship and that suing McQuillan and the union officials constituted “an improper attempt to remove the dispute to the court only after the Company’s efforts to obtain an apology through its authority, under the collective agreement, to discipline [had] failed.”²⁶ Wayne Fraser, of the steelworkers, issued a press release after the decision, explaining that “our members were inspired by McQuillan’s speech to our convention and … were shocked when Canadian Niagara Hotels and its ownership chose to discipline, then discharge and finally launch this action against her and officials from her union. We are very happy to see this action dismissed.”²⁷

In 2004, HERE merged with UNITE (the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees) to form UNITE HERE. In Niagara, the bargaining units of both former unions became Local 2347, a composite local covering all of Niagara. In addition to workers at Canadian Niagara Hotels, Local 2347 represented servers at Niagara Parks, food and beverage staff at the Fort Erie Racetrack, restaurant workers and groundskeepers at the St. Catharines Golf and Country Club, and workers at Filerfab, a small manufacturer based in St. Catharines. The change in unions notwithstanding, labour relations between the local and the management of Canadian Niagara Hotels remained sour.²⁸ A few months before the expiry of the collective agreement, a company-initiated petition to decertify the union started to make its way around the workplace. Having anticipated this employer offensive, the union had been preparing workers for the decertification vote that was on the horizon. In the end, much to the dismay of hotel management, the union won the vote soundly. Union organizers reasoned that the employer’s aggressive anti-union approach had backfired — only reconfirming for workers why they needed a union. Despite its victory in the decertification campaign, the union entered into contract negotiations with Canadian Niagara Hotels with a bitter taste in its mouth.

When negotiations predictably arrived at an impasse, an arbitrator was called in to settle the dispute, as part of the final offer selection process the parties had agreed to in the previous collective agreement. Assuming the company would go overboard in its final offer, given its rabidly anti-union approach to labour relations, the union strategically submitted a final offer that contained meaningful but not ground-breaking demands. The union’s strategy paid off when arbitrator Bill Kaplan ultimately chose Local 2347’s final proposal over hotel management’s. The new collective agreement included free parking for employees, guaranteed eight-hour shifts, and workload reduction for room attendants, as well as a 9 percent wage increase over three years. The agreement also included provisions for a $100 bonus for each employee upon ratification of the contract. However, as soon as the ink was dry on the new collective agreement, trouble began to brew between hotel management and the union.

Annoyed that the arbitrator had chosen the union’s final proposal over its own, and determined to undermine the union’s legitimacy in the workplace, hotel management withheld the bonus that had been negotiated in the contract. It also implemented a split-shift system designed to encourage room attendants to forgo their right to a standard eight-hour day.²⁹ Hotel management, it seemed, was hell-bent on busting the union.

On 16 September 2006, well-known actor Danny Glover traveled to Niagara Falls to attend a union rally in support of the workers employed by Canadian Niagara Hotels. Dubbed “labour’s lethal weapon” by local media — a reference to his starring role alongside Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon films — Glover was speaking at union rallies all across North America in support of hotel workers. The actor was lending his celebrity to the cause of organized labour because, in his own words, “the unions are in the perfect position to be the anti-poverty program in the 21st century.”³⁰ Glover joined the demonstration deep in the city’s tourism district and listened intently as hotel workers took turns at a megaphone describing the climate of workplace intimidation at the hotels. Michelle Hemmingson, a room attendant, spoke at the rally during her lunch break. “Despite the fact we won a great new contract, hotel management has mostly ignored it,” she declared.³¹ Glover’s presence at the rally, which took over a stretch of Falls Avenue directly in front of the Sheraton on the Falls hotel, piqued the interest of tourists, who posed for pictures with the Hollywood star and cheered him on as he spoke in defence of local hotel workers.

Actor Danny Glover addresses hotel workers and their allies at a demonstration against Canadian Niagara Hotels in Niagara Falls on 16 September 2006. Courtesy of UNITE HERE.

Glover told the demonstrators and a growing crowd of tourists that the union’s fight for dignity and respect was just and that the hotel workers had his full support. After his impassioned speech, he joined union president Alex Dagg and OFL president Wayne Samuelson in an attempt to confront hotel management over the treatment of the hotel’s workers. The trio entered the lobby of the Sheraton on the Falls and demanded to speak with the management about the outstanding grievances and the complaints against the hotel that had been filed with the OLRB. But management declined to engage them. According to hotel security, the trio were repeatedly asked to leave the lobby but refused, prompting a call to the Niagara Regional Police. The hotel asked the police to arrest Glover, Dagg, and Samuelson for trespassing, but the police were unwilling to lay charges. A sergeant later explained to local media that “everyone was co-operative and Mr. Glover was a gentleman throughout the event.”³²

When the trio left the hotel lobby and announced to the crowd that management had refused to meet with them, demonstrators booed and jeered. “We’re going to keep coming back until we have the opportunity to meet with the owners of this hotel. And I don’t care how many times it takes us and we’re going to bring more people out next time,” exclaimed Dagg, much to the approval of the crowd.³³

Enraged by the union’s tactics, Canadian Niagara Hotels decided to pursue private prosecutions against Glover, Dagg, and Samuelson. The charge against Glover had the effect of focusing major media attention on the dispute. Glover explained his participation in the rally as follows: “I was using the presence and visibility I have to bring attention to the cause and to get the owners adhering to the contract they signed.”³⁴ His trespass charge and his support for the union became national news.

In response to Canadian Niagara Hotel’s decision to pursue private prosecution, union members from across Ontario met in Niagara Falls on the evening of 13 December 2006 for another demonstration against the company. Hotel workers were flanked by members of the CAW, USWA, OPSEU, and an assortment of other unions, all waving flags and carrying picket signs calling for workplace justice at Canadian Niagara Hotels. Dagg told the assembled crowd that, in addition to taking legal action against Glover, Dagg, and Samuelson, hotel management was refusing to pay out the $100 signing bonus the union had won for members in the last round of collective bargaining. The union was also demanding the implementation of an eight-hour work day without split shifts.³⁵ From the corner of Lorne and Centre streets, above the Clifton Hill tourist area, union members and their community allies marched through the city, chanting and waving union flags, en route to the Sheraton on the Falls.

Once demonstrators reached the rally point, across from the hotel, the children of several hotel workers addressed the crowd, describing the negative impact of the hotel’s split-shift policy on their family life. Dagg explained that the “newly implemented split shifts are forcing our members to make a horrible choice between being able to work enough hours to support their families or spending time with their families.”³⁶ As for the contested $100 signing bonus, Dagg pointed out that it “could go a long way towards buying presents for the kids this Christmas.”³⁷ As she went on to argue: “The company doesn’t need to do split shifts or withhold the bonus. At this time of year, especially, people want to know they can spend time with their kids and give them a good Christmas. At this rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the folks in the management of this company were visited by three ghosts this Christmas Eve.”³⁸

A union activist dressed in a Santa Claus costume injected some humour into the gathering. “My elves have been collecting documentation on the activities of this hotel company,” he told the assembled hotel workers and their families. “So far it doesn’t look very good for the company. I fear that I may have to give them a lump of coal this Christmas.”³⁹ At this point, a union supporter, who had covertly checked into the hotel earlier that day, unfurled a large banner from the window of a room directly overlooking the rally point. The banner read: “DON’T LET THE GRINCH STEAL CHRISTMAS! TELL CANADIAN NIAGARA HOTELS: STOP THE WAR ON WORKING FAMILIES.” The unveiling of the banner sent hotel security into a mad scramble, while demonstrators cheered.⁴⁰

The next day, Local 2347 revealed that just prior to the start of its holiday-themed demonstration, hotel management had sent a fax to the union’s headquarters threatening to rescind a wage increase for banquet servers. The union responded by issuing a press release, calling the company’s move a “thinly veiled attempt to intimidate the union and workers from exercising their democratic right to free speech.”⁴¹

Meanwhile, the company’s lawsuit against Glover, Dagg, and Samuelson in connection with the alleged trespass incident of 16 September was making its way through the legal system. Frank Addario, the lawyer defending the trio, officially announced that all three would plead not guilty to the charge. Addario also served notice that he would be challenging the constitutional validity of the company’s private prosecution.

Glover’s central role in the legal battle significantly boosted the union’s profile and inspired hotel workers like Michelle Hemmingson to stand up and be counted. However, given the level of animosity between hotel management and the union, new rank-and-file activists became a prime target for employer intimidation. In April 2007, Hemmingson was fired for allegedly stealing from the company — one of a number of union activists discharged by hotel management. The union subsequently filed a grievance against the hotel, arguing that the firing was unjustified and was motivated solely by Hemmingson’s emergence as a strong supporter of the union.

At the same time, the union invited Hemmingson to address meetings of union members across Niagara and Hamilton to raise awareness about Canadian Niagara Hotel’s campaign against union activists. Speaking to the St. Catharines and District Labour Council, Hemmingson described the history of the dispute and underscored the need for solidarity:

My name is Michelle Hemmingson.… I worked at one of the three hotels owned by Canadian Niagara Hotels, otherwise known as C.N.H. … These are big hotels. At the Sheraton alone, there are 670 rooms in a hotel that directly faces the falls. These rooms start at about $150 a night and go up to $500. Even in the slow season, these hotels are busy. Besides facing the falls, they are also connected to the Niagara Casino. The casino even pays rent to C.N.H. for the land upon which the casino sits, to the tune of $2.2 million a month. With all this money coming in, you would think that the hotel owners would be interested in treating their employees right. I am here to tell you a bit about my story and to call on you to join my fellow workers in trying to make C.N.H. respect the contract of my unionized brothers and sisters.…

… Who are we? Generally, people who work in the hotel industry in Niagara Falls are women or young people. It used to be that these people were earning a second income for the family. The other family member worked in the higher paying stable manufacturing jobs. With the decline of the manufacturing sector, more and more families in Niagara Falls are finding themselves with having to support their children on one or two hotel jobs. It’s a tough struggle, but we do it.

I began my time at C.N.H. three years ago and used the money to support my son, Cole, and myself. At first I kept my head down and kept to myself. After a time, though, I began to really dislike what I saw happening around the hotel. I didn’t like the way I saw people being treated, and I felt I needed to do something. I got involved in the union and eventually became shop steward.

Things came to a head in 2005 with the most recent set of contract negotiations. Negotiations dragged on and on until eventually, at management’s request, we went to final contract selection. This is a rarely used bit of labour law that says that both sides write up their best offer and give them to the arbitrator. The arbitrator then picks one or the other. The company’s proposal was so outlandish that the arbitrator chose our version of the contract.

There were a couple of key changes in the union’s proposal. The life of a room attendant is measured by the number of rooms you have to clean in a shift. It’s a lot of work to clean a room. You have to vacuum the floor, strip the bed, replace linens and towels, clean the bathroom, wash toilets, and replace various amenities, as well as [perform] other tasks depending on the standards of the hotel. At C.N.H., with the old standard of sixteen rooms in an eight-hour shift, that’s half an hour per room. Notice that is with no breaks. We are always hurrying or having to work off the clock. This results in people getting hurt or having to sacrifice family time for work.

In the new contract, we won a reduction in the number of rooms required to be cleaned per shift from sixteen to fifteen. A small reduction but significant in this town with only 6 percent union density. We also won a salary increase of 3 percent for each of the three years of the contract. Again, very significant to people who are working pay cheque to pay cheque.

On top of the low pay per hour, there is the battle to get hours. We won a provision that required the employer to give people full eight-hour shifts rather than the six-hour shifts that were standard previously. This increased our hours per week from thirty to forty. Again, a significant matter of money. We had hoped that with the increase in hours there would be less need for us to work second jobs.

There were a few other improvements, but I won’t go into details because really, none of that matters. In my opinion, C.N.H. has been trying to steal as much power away from their employees as possible. I see this as part of a long-term campaign to push the union out of the hotel.

Those eight-hour shifts I was just speaking about? C.N.H. decided they would schedule people for eight-hour shifts, but they were split shifts. This means that people would come in and work for six or seven hours, be told to get off the property for two or three hours, and [then] come back for the remaining one or two hours. Can you imagine that? In the interest of working ten more hours a week, you end up spending ten to twenty hours waiting. And there is little business sense in using split shifts for room attendants in a hotel. At 7:00 p.m. at night, there is little work for them to do. In my opinion, this wasn’t about business sense; it was about getting people to give in.

C.N.H. offered people “an out.” They could sign away their right to an eight-hour shift, and they would just be scheduled for a six-hour shift. The pressures of life outside of work forced almost every room attendant to do just that. We gave up our right to ten more hours per week because our boss didn’t want to accept the terms of the contract. Think about it for a minute. These ten hours represent $480 in salary for a room attendant.…

… Even on the simple matter of the award bonus, C.N.H. has been stubborn. According to the contract, they were to pay out a $100 bonus for the awarding of the contract. Again, delay, delay, delay. It’s been eleven months since the contract was awarded, and they still haven’t paid it out. We’re talking about a grand total of about $50,000 here. A small amount for a hotel doing the business that they do. But a large amount for us, the people who keep the hotel running.

As active union members, you are probably thinking, What about grievances? What about filing with the labour board? What about other legal ways of making C.N.H. behave? We are doing all that and more. But all of those processes take time. On top of that, though, when C.N.H. is involved, everything moves extremely slowly. We already have dates for arbitration booked into spring of next year for things that happened last February.

Many people know of the issues that the union and C.N.H. have with each other, but few know what the employees go through on a daily basis. Myself, I have felt continuous pressure since becoming a steward and health and safety activist. It’s like walking around with a target on your back. After completing my eight-hour shift, I was held in an investigation meeting for another five hours. I have been suspended for six days.

The numbers speak for themselves. Out of five bargaining committee members that we had in 2005, only one remains working inside the hotel. All health and safety members in the last four years have been fired or have left the workplace on sick leave. The woman that I replaced on the health and safety committee left the hotel in an ambulance because of an anxiety attack and hasn’t returned since. Stewards have the same kind of luck at C.N.H., so much [so] that there is only one steward in the entire complex, where our collective agreement says there can be one steward in each department inside each hotel.

Recently, in April, my employment was terminated by C.N.H. because they claimed I had committed an act of theft. I can’t say much about the details of my termination as we have filed a grievance that is ongoing.…

We don’t see C.N.H. complying with many significant parts of the contract, and our union activists have a strange tendency to lose their jobs. They [C.N.H.] are in no risk of going under and are ready to invest their money in several different development projects, and yet I do not see them treating their employees right. It’s about time that we demand that this company change its ways.

I would really like to be able to go to work without being afraid. I would like to be confident that I am going to have a job that will support my family. We all would. That is why I am here today. We are calling on you for solidarity. It is only with community pressure that C.N.H. is going to change their ways.⁴²

The labour movement responded to Hemmingson’s plea for solidarity. On 16 June 2007, hundreds of labour union activists from across southern Ontario converged on Niagara Falls for yet another demonstration against Canadian Niagara Hotels. The labour march and rally highlighted Hemmingson’s unfair firing, with demonstrators carrying picket signs, emblazoned with Hemmingson’s image, demanding justice for hotel workers in Niagara. OFL president Wayne Samuelson, who had been charged with trespassing along with Danny Glover and UNITE HERE Canadian Director Alex Dagg in September 2006, returned to Niagara in a show of solidarity with the union, pledging that “the 750,000 members of the labour movement in Ontario will do whatever is necessary to ensure that things change.”⁴³

Hundreds of union members march in Niagara Falls on 16 June 2007, in support of hotel workers’ rights. Courtesy of UNITE HERE.

The demonstrators, who assembled at the corner of Dixon Street and Cleveland Avenue, made their way through the tourism district of Niagara Falls, marching past every single major hotel and both casinos, chanting and beating drums, while tourists and hotel workers on break looked on with interest. Ultimately, the demonstrators stopped in front of the Sheraton on the Falls, where the assembled workers held a noisy rally under the watchful eye of dozens of private security guards hired by the company. Dagg told the assembled crowd, “This hotel has been thumbing their noses at proper standards of employee treatment for years and it has to stop.”⁴⁴ She went on to explain that “Niagara Falls is a great community and its workers deserve jobs that allow them to support their families and live with dignity. The poor treatment of workers at C.N.H. is a problem for this whole community, especially because so much of the economy is now dependent on tourism.”⁴⁵ Hemmingson echoed Dagg’s comments, arguing that the hotel’s poor treatment of its workers “has an effect on our entire community. If Niagara Falls is so dependent on tourism, then we need to make sure jobs in hotels, restaurants and tourist attractions are the types of jobs that allow us and our community to prosper.”⁴⁶

The labour movement followed up on 3 September 2007, with a Labour Day rally and march that once again targeted Canadian Niagara Hotels. Local 2347 brought in busloads of members from sister locals across the province to participate in the demonstration. Steelworkers from Hamilton, autoworkers from St. Catharines, teachers, university workers, and other public sector workers from across Niagara swelled the ranks of the participants.

In response, Canadian Niagara Hotels further beefed up its security and videotaped demonstrators as they made their way through the city to the Sheraton on the Falls. The increased level of security was likely due to the presence of Danny Glover at the rally. Even though his trespassing charge was still before the courts, Glover, who was filming a movie a few hours away in Guelph, decided to return to Niagara Falls for the Labour Day rally and march in support of the city’s hotel workers. Demonstrators, who had gathered at the corner of Hunter and Union streets, snaked through the city’s tourism district waving colourful union flags and carrying banners demanding respect for hotel workers. The leadership of Local 2347 explained that the Labour Day mobilization was motivated by three outstanding issues: the targeting and discharge of union activists, the continued prosecution of Glover, Dagg, and Samuelson for trespass, and the company’s ongoing refusal to pay out the contractually negotiated bonus and 3 percent wage increase to banquet staff.⁴⁷

Glover told the assembled crowd that “when men and women organize for better pay, when men and women organize for better working conditions, they’re being the best citizens they can be, they’re elevating the rest of society.… To date, justice has been denied and when justice is denied to one person, it is denied to all.”⁴⁸ Welland MPP Peter Kormos also spoke at the rally, encouraging hotel workers to stay strong and to keep up the fight.⁴⁹

The union was on a roll. In September 2007, student servers working at the Niagara Parks Commission opted to follow the lead of their full-time counterparts and unionize with Local 2347. The union won 74 percent support in the certification election. In October 2007, arbitrator Howard Brown directed Canadian Niagara Hotels to pay its workers the $100 bonuses that had been negotiated in collective bargaining. In his decision, the arbitrator categorically rejected the company’s position on the matter, thus resolving a long-standing dispute between the parties in favour of the union. The union hailed the arbitration decision as a major victory for hotel workers, largely because the non-payment of negotiated bonuses was one of the central issues that had fuelled demonstrations against the company, including the 16 September 2006 rally that resulted in the trespassing lawsuit.⁵⁰

On 30 October 2007, the Ontario Provincial Offences Court in Niagara Falls became a media circus when Danny Glover took the stand to defend himself against Canadian Niagara Hotels’ charge that he had trespassed on private property. Frank Addario, the lawyer defending Glover and the union officials, argued that the company’s private prosecution had no merit because it violated the freedoms of expression and assembly guaranteed to all Canadians in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Addario further argued that the rare private prosecution should not have been used as a substitute for the collective bargaining process.⁵¹ In the end, however, the court was not convinced.

On 24 January 2008, Danny Glover, Alex Dagg, and Wayne Samuelson were convicted of trespassing. “It is sad that even though the police acknowledged everyone was well behaved and did not press charges, a rich and powerful company can pay to go forward with a private prosecution,” lamented an unrepentant Alex Dagg.⁵² “It raises serious questions for all of us who believe in fairness and equality before the law but it will, in no way, deter us from continuing to stand up for what is right.” OFL president Wayne Samuelson reinforced Dagg’s view. “The Ontario labour movement will not be deterred by this decision today and will continue to utilize our Charter rights to stand up for working people across this province. It is wrong that those with money can go above the police and purchase a prosecution in this province, and we will stand our ground against such tactics,” he said in a press release.⁵³

At the sentencing a few weeks later, the trio were fined only $100 each, and Justice of the Peace Moira Moses refused the company’s request to force the defendants to foot the bill for private prosecution.⁵⁴ Instead, the company would be responsible for paying its own $22,000 legal bill despite its victory in court. Moses characterized the intentions of the three defendants as “noble” and expressed the view that the private prosecution had been unnecessary to protect the interests of the hotel’s owners.⁵⁵ The defendants took pride in the fact that Moses adopted the position that Canadian Niagara Hotels ought to have engaged in continued good faith negotiations with the union. Moses’s ruling amounted to a symbolic victory of sorts for the union and its allies. “It is outrageous that even though our courts are overwhelmed with serious cases and the police refused to charge us for entering the hotel lobby in 2006, this company has wasted its money and the court’s time and tax dollars on this matter,” Dagg declared. “It is a shame; they could have paid a room attendant for almost a year on the money they’ve wasted on this.”⁵⁶ Wayne Samuelson was also mystified by the company’s actions, pointing out that the private prosecution of Danny Glover had only drawn more attention to the labour relations problems at the hotels and mobilized even greater numbers of workers against the company.⁵⁷

Local 2347 built on the success of its 2007 Labour Day march against Canadian Niagara Hotels by organizing a second Niagara Falls Labour Day demonstration on 1 September 2008 in conjunction with the Niagara Falls and St. Catharines District Labour Councils. The 2008 Labour Day demonstration was the largest in the history of the city of Niagara Falls. Members of Local 2347, still locked in a prolonged struggle with Canadian Niagara Hotels, wore T-shirts with the slogan “Kicking ass for the working class” and marched behind a banner that read “Niagara Hotel Workers Deserve a Raise.” They were joined by the Buffalo chapter of Students Against Sweatshops, a local contingent from the Council of Canadians, a delegation of New Democratic Party activists, and dozens of union locals representing workers in virtually every sector of the economy.⁵⁸ Infuriated by Canadian Niagara Hotel’s repeated attempts at union-busting, unions and their community allies were determined to send a message that they would continue to target the company until the company agreed to stop targeting Local 2347.

The union followed up its successful Labour Day demonstration with a victory at the Niagara Falls Courtyard Marriott, when the hotel’s room attendants, laundry workers, and gift shop staff voted in December 2008 to join Local 2347. “We really need to make things better at work and in the hotel industry as a whole in Niagara. I think that we can make a real difference for our families and for all tourism workers throughout the Niagara region,” said Marie Oddson, a room attendant at the hotel and key union supporter.⁵⁹ Local 2347 was also busy organizing hotel workers in St. Catharines.

Early in 2009, Diane Barnim, a room attendant at the Holiday Inn on North Service Road in St. Catharines, became an overnight cause célèbre when Local 2347 featured her in a series of billboard ads aimed at rallying community support for workers’ rights. Barnim, who had worked at the Holiday Inn for five years, was determined to improve working conditions at the hotel. In August 2008, she had contacted Local 2347 and, with the help of the union, had started signing up her co-workers on union cards in an effort to win union certification. A few days later, she was terminated. Arguing that hotel management fired Barnim because she was exercising her legal right to unionize, Local 2347 filed an unfair labour practice complaint against the Holiday Inn with the OLRB.⁶⁰

In October, the OLRB ordered that Barnim be reinstated on an interim basis. A month later, workers at the hotel — twenty-five of whom had initially signed union cards — voted 35 to 1 against joining the union. The union complained that, by firing Barnim, hotel management had frightened the hotel staff, with the result that the outcome of vote was biased, and asked the OLRB to recognize Local 2347 as the bargaining agent for the workers even though the union had lost the certification vote. The union’s position was founded on the premise that firing a key union supporter in the middle of a union drive has a chilling effect on the entire workforce, which would explain the striking discrepancy between the number of cards signed and the number of workers who actually cast ballots in favour of the union.⁶¹

Recognizing that legal processes often take a long time to come to a resolution, in February 2009 the union also launched a high-profile advertising campaign designed to apply pressure on both the Holiday Inn and the provincial government.⁶² The “I Stand with Diane” campaign featured an interactive website, an online petition, and a series of billboards across the city featuring Barnim’s picture and encouraging community members to “Stand with Diane.” The union’s campaign, which called on the provincial government to reinstate card-based union certification, attracted high-profile celebrity endorsements. Actors Sarah Polley and Danny Glover, musician Harry Belafonte, Welland MPP Peter Kormos, and Welland MP Malcolm Allen were all featured on the billboards along with Barnim.⁶³

Actor Sarah Polley (left) poses with St. Catharines hotel worker Diane Barnim (right) as part of the “I Stand with Diane” campaign. Courtesy of UNITE HERE.

“What’s happened is by firing Diane the employer has succeeded in totally poisoning the workplace,” said Alex Dagg. “We’ve got a workplace filled with people who believe that if you join a union, you get fired. That’s the message.”⁶⁴ In less than two days, five hundred people from across North America had signed the union’s online petition.⁶⁵ In April 2009, the owner of the hotel, facing both growing pressure as a result of the campaign and the very real prospect of having the OLRB side with the union, voluntarily recognized the union as the bargaining agent for the hotel’s workers.

Local 2347’s organizing victories and growing community presence forced employers like Canadian Niagara Hotels to rethink their relationship with the union. In April 2008, an arbitration decision had forced Canadian Niagara Hotels to make good on the unpaid wages that had become a central issue in the protests against the company. The decision vindicated the union’s assertion that the company had not been abiding by the terms of the collective agreement. Local 2347 president Sandra Rebrovich trumpeted the arbitration award in a press release. “Hopefully soon,” she commented, “this employer will figure out that it is easier to build a good working relationship with the members of our union than it is to play legal games.”⁶⁶

Someone at Canadian Niagara Hotels must have been listening. The union’s intense and protracted battle to gain both recognition and cooperation from the company finally came to an end in January 2009, when members of Local 2347, now affiliated with Workers United, ratified a new contract. Both the union and management claimed that the deal would mark a positive turning point in labour relations between the parties. In a symbolic gesture of labour peace, the union decided to hold its 11–12 November 2010 Ontario Council meeting at the Brock Hotel (recently renamed the Crowne Plaza) — once a frequent target of union demonstrations. “I am so happy to have you all here in Niagara and inside this beautiful hotel rather than outside on the street!” Rebrovich declared in her opening address to union delegates.⁶⁷ The assembled activists erupted with loud applause and laughter before getting down to business. After all, there were still numerous outstanding challenges, opportunities, and obstacles facing working people seeking to improve working conditions in Niagara’s hotel and hospitality sector.