From Hotel Halls to City Hall: A Union’s Disputed Tactics

A swell in political activity by Unite Here Local 40 contributed to a controversial week at city hall as Vancouver city council considered its villages plan and a three-tower development proposal that would include the tallest building in B.C.

Over the past weeks, the hotel workers’ union has mobilized dozens of supporters to rally outside city hall for affordable housing and call in to public hearings to oppose several prominent hotel projects.

The union says it’s taking action because housing affordability and wages are a top issue for members and their families. Michelle Travis, an organizer for the union, said its members are being priced out of Vancouver — and city hall is one place they can speak up.

But the union’s efforts have led some city councillors to accuse the union of filibustering after hundreds of people signed up to speak at several public hearings last week.

And after several supporters admitted they were from the United States, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim accused the union of “foreign interference.”

Experts say that while the union’s tactics may be uncommon, they are a legitimate way to bring members’ issues to city hall and may benefit the union during collective bargaining.

Former labour official and New Democratic Party MP Peggy Nash said showing up at city hall puts union members’ affordability concerns in front of the public — and demonstrates to employers the union can organize and mobilize its members.

“It's a way of public communication,” Nash said. “If you've got huge amounts of money, you might buy an ad in a newspaper. But bringing people out to convey a message is also a very powerful way of communicating.”

Unite Here Local 40 mainly represents hotel, casino, restaurant and other hospitality workers across B.C. It’s part of the Unite Here international union, which represents 300,000 workers across Canada and the United States.

The union says it has helped workers negotiate for the highest hotel wages in Canada. For example, in 2024, room attendants at the Hyatt Regency, Westin Bayshore and Pinnacle hotels in downtown Vancouver bargained for wages that will reach over $37 per hour in 2027.

But other union members say their wages aren’t enough to support their families in Vancouver.

“I’m hoping that they're gonna listen to us as people who are suffering,” said Jennie Padilla, a cook at the Vancouver International Airport who is married with a child. “They need to focus on us, not on businesses.”

According to the BC Society for Policy Solutions’ and Living Wage BC’s latest annual living wage report, a worker in Metro Vancouver would need to make at least $27.85 per hour to afford food, housing and other essentials.

Padilla joined several dozen other union members, municipal politicians and other residents in a rally outside Vancouver City Hall July 9, calling for city hall to prioritize affordable housing.

She was joined by Janet Budd, a Vancouver resident who has worked at the Holiday Inn for more than 35 years. Budd said she has lived in the West End for more than four decades but is about to be “demovicted” from her apartment, meaning her home is set to be demolished and a new building put in its place.

“I’m upset with city council,” Budd said. “They're ripping down affordable housing just to build new condos that I'll never be able to live in.”

At the rally, Vancouver Coun. Pete Fry said he would not be able to comment on specific developments while they were referred to public hearing but that he understood the union’s concerns that council was prioritizing hotel rooms over affordable housing development.

“The exasperation and frustrations around the delivery of affordable housing is palpable and it's obvious in this scenario, where the median income is so disconnected from market rates of housing,” he said.

Fry said people were right to pressure city council ahead of the upcoming municipal election.

“Folks are right to be focused on those questions because I think those are decisions that shouldn't just get a rubber stamp,” he said.

Unite Here campaign is multi-pronged

The rally July 9 was part of a larger campaign the union launched this summer at city hall, calling for Vancouver city council to prioritize affordable housing over hotel development.

“We're not against more hotels per se, but we do have a problem with this gold rush to hotels,” Travis said. “We think it's kind of the wrong priority for the city.”

Council currently has plans to encourage hotel development in support of Vancouver’s tourism industry, and in 2025 it set a goal of adding 10,000 new hotel rooms to the city by 2050.

The union has filed for a judicial review of City of Vancouver bylaw amendments that would allow some downtown hotels to exclude up to 20 per cent of floor area from density calculations (up from 15 per cent), meaning they can use more floor space for event, conference and amenity spaces.

It has joined a separate campaign called Take Back Vancouver, which calls on city council to focus on affordable and social housing, subsidized transit and better child care.

The union organized another half-dozen rallies outside city hall throughout July to oppose developments including a 300-slot-machine expansion at the Parq Casino; plans to demolish Myron Manor, a three-storey apartment building at 75 E. 8th Ave., and replace it with a 21-storey hotel; and developer Holborn’s multi-block project downtown that would include 1,546 housing units, a 920-room hotel slated to be the tallest building in the province and a separate 272-unit social housing tower several blocks away.

Unite Here Local 40 has one member who lives at Myron Manor.

“We're concerned about the direction of the city,” Travis said. “It affects our members, it affects our families, and it affects folks beyond hospitality workers represented here.”

Jamming the hall

But the extent of Unite Here Local 40’s participation in public hearings over the past two weeks has been criticized by some city councillors with ABC Vancouver, the party that currently holds a majority on council.

On July 22, more than 343 people registered to weigh in on a public hearing into the controversial villages plan, which proposed densifying single-family home neighbourhoods. The speakers’ list included local Unite Here organizers and names that matched with the union’s other locals in the United States.

The next day, more than 300 people signed up to speak during the public hearing about Holborn’s development project. Unite Here Local 40 president Zailda Chan called in to the hearing to urge city council to add stronger requirements to the project that would ensure developer Holborn delivers the social and affordable housing units planned.

The developer has faced criticism for delays in building promised social housing and its role in allowing a historic hotel to rot until it had to be torn down.

“Without binding answers, nearly all risk falls directly on the people least able to absorb it,” Chan told council through a translator. “Council should require these protections before any permit, demolition or tenant departure occurs.”

At the July 22 hearing, ABC Coun. Brian Montague accused some speakers of using translators to filibuster the public hearings, as public speakers using translators get up to 10 minutes to speak before council, instead of the usual five. And on Thursday, ABC Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung asked Chan if the union had overflowed the public hearing with speakers.

“Do you think it’s reasonable to have Americans take up all of this opportunity for local residents to speak because you’ve flooded the speakers’ list?” Kirby-Yung asked Chan.

That hearing dragged on past 1 a.m.

Mayor Ken Sim has called on the B.C. government to amend the Vancouver Charter to allow only Canadian residents to speak at public hearings, alleging participation from the United States amounts to foreign interference.

Union seeks discussion with Sim

David Hannah, a business professor at Simon Fraser University, said the accusations could hurt the union’s reputation with members.

“This is a credibility issue for the union,” he said. “I don't agree that that is foreign interference, but it is something that could create a problem for them.”

Meanwhile, the union’s Travis said in an email that the union takes Sim’s concerns seriously and has invited him to discuss them.

“We’ll see if he responds,” Travis said. “It should not be a distraction from their decision to wave through Holborn, Myron Manor and many other projects that don’t prioritize affordability.”

Despite the opposition, Vancouver city council approved Holborn’s hotel and housing project this week.

This week council also approved the Myron Manor property rezoning and voted against the villages plan.

Peter Waldkirch, a Vancouver-based lawyer, has been a housing advocate in the city for about eight years. He said Unite Here Local 40’s direct participation in municipal housing policy is new.

“The labour movement has a long history in Vancouver of participating in politics by endorsing candidates, for example, during elections,” he said. “But this is the first time I've seen a union take such an active role, specifically in public hearings, especially by trying to block development.”

He added he disagrees with the union’s stance against the villages plan, which Waldkirch said would allow for “desperately needed” low-rise rental apartments on Vancouver’s west side. And while Waldkirch said he welcomes the labour movement’s participation at city hall, he said the union’s advocacy seemed to be geared more toward blocking hotel development than toward approving affordable housing.

“We have to be able to say yes to things that are good, not just fight against things,” he said. “I don't see how fighting against hotels advances the cause for affordable housing.”

Travis said they’re taking action at city hall because housing affordability is a top issue for members and the current city council.

“It is new for us, but it's something we've been thinking about for a while and wanting to do,” Travis said. “More people are kind of grappling with the affordability crisis and we think there's a moment here.”

But Travis said the union was concerned that city council was approving hotels and market rentals that its members cannot afford, despite Vancouver being behind on its targets for non-market rentals.

A City of Vancouver report in April found that last year approximately 16 per cent of homes approved were expected to rent at non-market or below-market rentals, below the city’s 19 per cent target.

Travis added the union sees city hall as another place to advocate for members' priorities.

“A lot of our members work for the very hotel developers that are pricing us out of our city,” Travis said. “There is a nexus between our members and where the city's priorities are — and they seem more aligned with the hotel developers than they do with everyday workers.”

Meanwhile SFU’s Hannah said that while it’s normal for a union to get involved in politics, Unite Here Local 40’s campaign was uncommonly public-facing.

“It's a legitimate activity for unions to get involved in politics and try to lobby for causes that they feel are important to them,” Hannah said. “But the way they’re being disruptive and very vocal and very prominent does seem a little bit unusual.”

Hannah has not been involved in the union’s negotiations or campaign. But from the outside, he said, it seemed the campaign could pressure city politicians and hotel developers to influence hotel employers during bargaining.

The union has recently organized workers at the Georgian Court, Exchange Hotel and Le Soleil hotels, and is still in bargaining for a collective agreement at those three workplaces.

“This to me feels a little bit like they're using developers and city hall to try to influence them and try to get them to put pressure on our employers,” he said. “I can understand that. ‘Will it work?’ is a totally different question.”