(The following article is from the January 1-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Norman Faria

Forty years ago when I got a job in the garage section of the posh Royal York Hotel in downtown Toronto, one of the first things I did was to join the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Workers Union (HERWU) which represented the staff. I had been in the country as an immigrant for four years but I knew only through a collective voice with the longer established Canadian people could we maintain and increase good working conditions, proper wages and more extensive benefits.

     In those days, in 1969, there was a sprinkling of other immigrants at the hotel. Over the last four decades, with increased immigration predominately from areas such as South East Asia and the Caribbean and Latin America, more of the workforce are now "new Canadians". Many are described as ethnic minorities, meaning they stand out physically because of their colour or race. This influx of newcomers including from Guyana, with their diverse skills and cultures, has benefitted Canada.

     But, as in any other country, there can be shortcomings at the workplace. As Canadian law permits, the trade unions and other labour based and driven organisations are there for the workers' interests.

     One of these is the UNITE HERE! union. I was honoured, during a visit last September to Toronto, to be briefed on the union's operations by staff organisers Sima Zerehi and Omar Latif. The Union represents workers in several hotels, clothing manufacturers, food service and other trades in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The information would greatly assist me as the Guyana Honourary Consul in Barbados where Guyanese nationals, on work permits and otherwise, are employed in similar occupations.

     The Toronto operations of UNITE HERE! is headquartered at the downtown junction of Richmond and Spadina. The surrounding area was, up until the 1970s, the centre of the Toronto clothing manufacturing sector. Many immigrants (I still remember primarily women of Italian and Portuguese descent boarding the streetcars and buses on their way home at rush hour) worked there.

     As Zerehi and Latif explained, UNITE HERE! was actually a merger in July 2004 of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Workers Employees (UNITE) and the HERWU. Of the total 450,000 members, some 50,000 are in Canada with nearly 7,000 in GTA.

     The majority of UNITE HERE! members are immigrants and visible ethnic minorities. In Toronto, they make up a large component, about 70 percent. Some are from Guyana and the Caribbean, says Zerehi. The majority of members are women.

     Presently, the union is on a membership drive. This outreach will involve reaching out to employees in the city's currently unorganised and traditionally low wage hotels and service industries such as restaurants and cafeterias where maids, cleaners, cooks and other kitchen staff and even "higher level" employees may want to join.

     Last year, the union members staged a successful walkout at three major GTA hotels including the Royal York (now Fairmont Royal York).

     It was a significant action. Abdul Husseini, one of the waiters and UNITE HERE! member at the Radisson Suites Airport Hotel which was struck, noted that the chief cook at the hotel received $14.76 per hour while at the nearby Hilton a cook doing similar work was making $18.86.

     Chipped in fellow employee Matti Singh, as reported in a union news release: "We are the ones who make tourism work in Toronto. We deserve to be treated with respect."

     UNITE HERE! shop steward Helen Liu at the Royal York, one of the leaders at last year's strike action, had been honoured in 2007 by Toronto City Hall for her exemplary work with the union and the betterment of women in GTA. The union is involved with a wider movement called "Hotel Workers Rising" which as union literature noted "brings together hotel workers across North America in order to raise standards and create well paying, safe and secure jobs in the service sector".

     What is the relationship with other unions which may have a majority membership base of longer established Canadians? Do they see UNITE HERE! as only representing immigrants who do not wish to integrate into Canadian society, I ask?

     Far from it, says Latif, who points out that part of the union's logo on literature is "We Belong!". He said: "I think a significant message of the union is the desire of the immigrant workers to integrate into Canadian society and make it an even better place for everybody".

     UNITE HERE! has cordial and fraternal relations with other labour bodies and community organisations, he said. There is no division and there is always a dialogue, says Zerehi. Among those praising the work of UNITE HERE! is US President-elect Barack Obama.

     As with other unions in Canada, the labour body has a Health and Welfare Plan for its membership. For example, the maximum disability benefit for the first six weeks of disability is Can $435 per week.

     Guyanese with relatives working in the hotel and other service industries in the GTA are encouraged to contact UNITE HERE!, if they haven't already done so. The website for the union in Canada is http://www.unitehere.ca.

     I was grateful for my rewarding visit with staffers at the UNITE HERE! office and pledged to put the information they kindly gave me to proper use. As a former hotel worker union member and immigrant, I wanted to march with them in the annual labour Day Parade. But because of protocol considerations, I thought better of it. I nevertheless supported them from the sidewalk wishing them all the very best.

     (Norman Faria, Guyana's Honourary Consul in Barbados, recently visited Toronto. This feature is an abridged version published in the Sunday Chronicle newspaper in Guyana and is kindly reprinted with permission.)