Union members at Nanaimo’s Coast Bastion go on 24-hour strike
NANAIMO — Coast Bastion guests will have to get through a crowd of striking workers to enter the hotel.
Members of UNITE HERE Local 40, which includes all hotel and Minnoz restaurant staff but excludes managers, went of a 24-hour strike starting Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. The previous strike notice issued by the union expired at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 7.
Server and union shop steward Garry Constable told NanaimoNewsNOW he was compelled to act because the workload for housekeepers is increasing and their pension doesn’t allow them to “retire with dignity.”
“The housekeepers are being worked to the bone, doing sometimes 30 beds a day and 15 rooms. It’s breaking them…they’re fighting over supplies, there’s no sheets. (And) with the cost of living skyrocketing in Nanaimo, we need a living wage or we’re going to be falling under minimum wage in the near future.”