Collective bargaining for workers at four major Vancouver hotels begins this month, and the union representing them isn’t ruling out a strike during the summer, which is peak tourist season here.

“Workers are angry,” Michelle Travis, spokesperson for UNITE HERE Local 40, told the Straight by phone. “They feel like they’ve been worked to the bone, and they can tell that the companies are doing better.”

The union represents about 1,400 employees of the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver, the Hyatt Regency Vancouver, the Renaissance Vancouver Harbourside Hotel, and the Westin Bayshore. The workers’ three-year contract expires on June 30.

“In Vancouver, when the market was down, the companies cut back,” Travis said. “The problem is now that they’re doing better, they’re still operating as if the economy were in the toilet. The hotels are understaffed, so workers end up doing the jobs of two or three people. That increases the risks of injuries.”

Travis claimed that some workers aren’t being given enough hours, and aren’t earning sufficient wages.

According to her, the Vancouver hotel market in particular is doing better than those in other Canadian cities.

Travis said that PKF Consulting, a hotel research group, predicts that Vancouver’s hotel market will grow by 13 percent in 2010, compared to projections of four percent for Toronto and three percent for Montreal.

Citing figures from Canadian Lodging Outlook, an industry publication, Travis said that year-to-date revenue per available rooms for downtown Vancouver hotels by April 2010 was up more than 45 percent over the same period in 2009.

In the last round of negotiations in 2007, workers overwhelmingly voted to strike, according to her. A new agreement was reached that summer without a strike being undertaken.

Workers from the four hotels were scheduled to hold a rally on Wednesday evening (June 9) at the Hyatt, a move that surprised Eric Harris, chief negotiator for the Greater Vancouver Hotel Employers Association. The association acts as a single bargaining unit for the employers.

“Neither the employers nor union has tabled their proposals,” Harris told the Straight by phone. He noted that their first meeting will be held on June 22.

Except for saying that the hotels are satisfied that they’re fulfilling their labour obligations, Harris declined to comment on the union’s claims that the hotels are understaffed and that workers aren’t getting enough hours.

“We want to take these negotiations to the bargaining table,” he said. “I don’t wish to bargain in public.”