Sask. labour board says Heritage Inn negotiated with union in bad faith

The Saskatchewan Labour Relations Board ordered the Heritage Inn back to the bargaining table with UFCW after describing the hotel’s approach to negotiations as “intransigent.”

In a Feb. 28 decision, board vice-chair Barbara Mysko ruled the hotel acted in bad faith in negotiations with the workers’ union, UFCW Local 1400.

“The overall provocative and potentially damaging proposals, touching on these issues, would have been alarming for any reasonable union,” Mysko writes.

“Together, the proposals being advanced were indicative of a strategy on the part of the employer to frustrate the collective bargaining process.”

Heritage Inn operates in both Saskatoon and Moose Jaw.

Workers at Heritage Inn have been without a contract since July 2019. Management initiated a lock out on Sep. 7, 2023, but managed to entice a number of its staff back on the job, despite losing a number of entitlements.

After the lockout, UFCW 1400 President Lucia Flack Figueiredo expressed concerns that some of the staff were new Canadians and unsure of their rights as union members.

Staff turnover is high in the low-paying hotel and service industries, and she says Heritage Inn has refused to provide updated lists of staff members in a timely way, and will not let union representatives onto the property to speak with its members.

The labour relations board ruled Heritage Inn has no obligation to let union leaders onto its property to speak with employees, only to conduct negotations. Mysko attributes the bad-faith acts to the hotel’s conduct leading up to the lockout.

She writes that Heritage Inn presented a set of demands during bargaining that it knew were vexatious and could not possibly be accepted by the union, then hurriedly declared an impasse and locked employees out without providing adequate time for discussion.

Heritage Inn proposed to eliminate any guarantee of full-time employment, change seniority rules, allow individual contracts or agreements, remove guarantees for a fair and equitable distribution of work and cull benefits like paid bereavement leave and statutory holiday pay for Boxing Day.

Under the now-expired contract, serving staff were protected from responsibility if their cash float came up short, absent proof of theft. Heritage Inn sought to eliminate these protections as well.

“Viewed objectively, [they] were proposals and positions which the employer ought to have known were of fundamental significance to the union and which should attract the scrutiny of the board,” Mysko writes.

“First, they were proposals which could risk undermining employees’ job security and erode the bargaining unit.”

Mysko says it’s “obvious why the union lost trust in the employer during the negotiations.”

“It wanted the union to make substantive compromises but was not demonstrating a willingness to do so itself, especially in relation to the most important proposals.”

She says Heritage Inn rushed through bargaining and declared an impasse after only five days.

Union representative Figueiredo says her bargaining team never considered or threatened a labour disruption. She says they were surprised to find they were locked out in September.

She thinks the move was based on advice from their lawyer.

In her Feb. 28 decision, Mysko ordered the hotel to put a stop to its unfair labour practice and get back to the table with UFCW.

In a statement emailed to CTV News, a spokesperson for Heritage Inn said the hotel doesn’t intends to seek judicial review of the decision.

The spokesperson said Heritage Inn would be “carefully reviewing” the transcript of the board hearing before filing an appeal.

Figueiredo said she’s ready to get back to the table if they change their mind.

“The employer has probably spent more money on legal transactions than they would have had they just agreed to keep us working while we bargain,” she said.

“We’re always willing to bargain, but if I say that I can’t do something I really truly can’t.”