UNITE HERE! Canada Response to 2020 Federal Economic Update

EDMONTON, AB, Dec. 2, 2020 /CNW/ - UNITE HERE! Canada response from national director, Ian Robb, regarding the 2020 federal fiscal update presented by Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland:

"We appreciate the federal government's efforts to cushion the devastating blow of Covid-19 on Canadians. The government announced long-awaited supports for hard hit air travel, hospitality, and tourism sectors. However, we are deeply concerned that the federal government will provide hundreds of millions of dollars to these sectors without any conditions to ensure workers' jobs are preserved.  Failure to tie sectoral relief to job retention will be a missed opportunity and hurt Canada's workers.  

These critical sectors of the Canadian economy employ hundreds of thousands of workers – most of whom are laid off and are primarily women and racialized Canadians.  Government must prioritize fiscal support to employers who commit to bring back their pre-Covid workforce – and deny it to those who do not.  Among those who will have hats in hand for government support are employers who have terminated their workers en masse and undercut labour standards. They should not be supported by taxpayers. 

Similarly, CEWS in its current form benefits employers but is not designed to support all workers.  When offered billions of dollars to keep laid off workers on the payroll and connected to their jobs, most hotel employers refused.  How will the government ensure that new sectoral relief will help restart the economy and bring people back to work, rather than paying banks, lenders, and shareholders?

Targeted sectoral relief to hospitality and air transport employers must have strings attached and should be conditioned on three priorities: employers should be required to fully participate in CEWS to cover their pre-pandemic workforce; laid off workers need 24 months of recall protections so they can return to their jobs and not be replaced; and airports should be required to adopt worker retention to retain incumbent workers, particularly contracted workers who provide essential services.

Without conditions to bridge workers through this pandemic and back to their jobs, industries will recover without them. The federal government has made a commitment – no one will be left behind in this recovery.  Will they keep that commitment to hospitality workers?"   

UNITE HERE! Canada represents 18,000 hospitality workers, including those working in hotels, foodservice, airport concessions, airline catering, and remote sites. 

SOURCE UNITE HERE Canada

Michelle Travis, [email protected], [phone]