‘No letter, phone call or email:’ Ottawa’s Sheraton Hotel cutting up to 70 hospitality workers

The Ottawa Sheraton Hotel has decided to terminate the majority of its workforce — and terminations will start this week.

“On the anniversary of COVID-19 shutdowns, the Sheraton Ottawa Hotel informed UNITE HERE Local 261 that it will begin terminating all laid-off workers starting this week,” a news release from UNITE HERE said. “Workers, represented by Local 261, have been laid off since last year due to the pandemic and have sought a recall agreement with the hotel since October 2020. Such an agreement would ensure they return to their jobs when travel and tourism conditions improve and business recovers at the hotel.”

That means up to 70 workers will be cut over the next week.

“Workers have called on the hotel to stop terminations immediately,” the union said. “The Ottawa Sheraton is the only hospitality employer represented by Local 261 that has chosen to fire workers.”

The Sheraton Hotel, located on Albert Street, is owned by Hong Kong based Keck Song Investment, which invests in and owns hospitality properties in Asia and North America. It is, however, managed by Marriott International, the largest hotel corporation in the world.

Julie Borris, a banquet chef at the hotel for over 15 years, said she heard of the news through her union, and has not heard any word from anyone at the hotel.

“No letter, phone call or email,” she told CityNews Ottawa. “So, the one way to confirm this was [when] I went on [the] Service Canada [website] and my ROE had been updated as of Wednesday, saying I was terminated.”

Workers at the hotel had called on the Sheraton to follow suit with the majority of other unionized hotels in the area who had agreed to extend recall rights for workers past 52 weeks, but the Sheraton ultimately declined to do so.

Either way, those weeks were up this month for hotels that were part of that agreement.

“It’s really crushing what’s happened in the last week,” Borris said. “None of us saw this coming. We have a community board online and the general manager and other management would be putting posts up that they had high hopes they would welcome us back soon and that we were the heart of the hotel and part of their success.”

Borris said she did receive severance pay, but she still feels like she’s losing a second family.

“It’s really hard for us, because [about] 25 per cent of the workers had been there for more than two decades,” Borris explained. “Everyone loved their jobs, they’re so committed and it felt like it was our family. The idea of not having it to come back to has devastated so many of us and now we don’t know what we’re going to do.”

As for what’s next, the union said it’s about putting pressure on the company to reconsider.

“We’re going to have put the company in the public eye and put as much pressure on as possible,” Melissa Sobers, employee rep at the union, told CityNews Ottawa. “I think that’s the only way to do it. There’s no financial reason why the company would want to get rid of them, anyhow.”

MPP Joel Harden of Ottawa Centre called the hotel’s action “outrageous.”

“People will remember which companies did right by their workers during a global pandemic, and which ones acted with callous disregard for their wellbeing,” he added.

During 2020, Marriott generated a positive net cash flow of US$614 million and added 293 properties and 42,360 rooms to its portfolio.

Shares of Marriott International stock closed at US$154.29 on Thursday — its highest price ever.

CityNews Ottawa contacted the Ottawa Sheraton Hotel for comment Sunday afternoon but has not yet heard back.