Accor Canada workers demand their rights!

Workers at Accor’s Novotel Mississauga in Ontario, Canada are determined to have the collective agreement they thought would be theirs after the Ontario Labor Relations Board in September 2012 ordered Accor to immediately recognize UNITE HERE Local 75 and start contract negotiations.

The company has been dragging its feet since then, so on September 30th workers representing all of the hotel’s departments delivered a petition to the general manager demanding a rapid conclusion to collective bargaining.

The petition was signed by more than 75% of the workers in the hotel bargaining unit, an even higher percentage than those who signed union cards in 2009 as well as the two unofficial card counts performed by local elected officials subsequently. This strong support shows the solid grounds for the automatic recognition imposed by the OLRB, and has been achieved despite the fact that the union continues to be denied direct access to the workplace until a first collective agreement is signed.