Six-month lockout ends at Montreal’s Fairmont Queen Elizabeth

Union members at the Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel have ratified the agreement in principle to renew their collective agreement, putting an end to a six-month lockout at the storied downtown Montreal landmark.

Workers voted 91 per cent in favour of a new deal on Monday, after they were locked out by management on Nov. 20.

The union — the Fédération du commerce — says the deal includes a 21 per cent salary increase over four years for 600 workers, and more rules around the use of staffing agencies.

Hotel management says it will gradually restart operations this month, with full service to resume on May 26.

Dominique Villeneuve, president and CEO of the Association hôtelière du Grand Montréal, welcomed the agreement and called it a significant step forward.

“This outcome represents an important step forward for the stability of the establishment, the quality of the customer experience and, more broadly, for the image of the Montreal hotel industry. We now look forward to a return to normality that will benefit both the teams on the ground and visitors from here and abroad,” Villeneuve said.

The hotel workers union, along with some 30 others affiliated to the central labour body, had been engaged in coordinated negotiations in the hotel industry. Through this type of negotiation, the Fédération du commerce was seeking to obtain an initial settlement, and then to extend its provisions to other hotels where it has members, even if these are different employers.

In a press release issued on Monday, the federation indicated that the coordinated bargaining framework had also been followed in the case of the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth hotel. Several other hoteliers have since settled with their respective unions.

The hotel’s management was prepared to accept the conditions agreed by the other hoteliers, except for the use of staffing agencies, which had been a sticking point that had prevented a settlement as in other hotels as well.

The union, however, noted that “gains on restricting the use of employment agencies” have been made.

The union says a half-dozen other hotels in Quebec City, Montreal and Saguenay Lac-St-Jean, involved in the same coordinated bargaining, have yet to reach agreements.

–With files from La Presse Canadienne