By Isaac Phan Nay | The Tyee
Catering, cleaning and hospitality staff who live and work on a Squamish-area “floatel” have unionized.
The floatel is a former cruise ship — called the MV Isabelle X — converted to house 600 workers at the Woodfibre LNG project. The ship, last used in Estonia to house refugees from the Russian war on Ukraine, is moored seven kilometres outside Squamish, B.C.
U.S. catering company Aramark employs 60 people on board the ship, who perform a wide range of duties including cooking, cleaning and maintenance.
On May 1, Unite Here Local 40 was certified as their union.
“It’s great to have more workers coming together and demanding that these be good jobs,” union organizer Mike Biskar said.
Now the union will seek to negotiate a first contract with Aramark. Biskar said unionizing gives employees an opportunity to bargain for higher pay and better security.
“By organizing, they really are transforming what the industry and the quality of the jobs across B.C. looks like for remote camp workers,” he said.
It’s not clear what the union will seek or how the certification will affect Aramark’s plans to bring a second floatel to the area to house more workers.
Aramark vice-president of corporate communications Chris Collom said in an email the employer “accepts the union’s certification and looks forward to bargaining in good faith for a collective agreement that makes sense for both parties.”
Aramark is a U.S.-based catering company with about US$17 billion in revenue. It employs hospitality workers on board the floatel under its brand name LandSea.
Biskar said the workers reached out to the union late last year looking to organize.
Biskar said the organizing drive has been challenging, noting about 40 per cent of the staff are temporary foreign workers.
Publicly available records show LandSea got positive labour market impact assessments — needed before hiring temporary foreign workers — for the hiring of at least 34 positions last year.
The union went to the BC Labour Relations Board to overturn a company requirement that union organizers be accompanied on the ship by a company representative.
“There was a higher level of fear that we experienced talking to workers at this camp than in other places,” Biskar said. “That made it a bit more challenging.”
Biskar said the union will try to include policies to nominate foreign employees for permanent residency in the contract and push for better wages.
Cleaners on board the ship currently make about $19 per hour. That’s on the low end of the provincial range of $17.40 to $25.28 per hour for light-duty cleaners.
A second floatel
Earlier this month, Woodfibre LNG announced it’s hoping to bring a second floatel to its project site near Squamish. It could house another 900 workers.
Biskar said it’s not clear if LandSea will be contracted to provide support services or if workers on the new ship will be able to join the new bargaining unit.
“Still, if workers from that camp reach out to us about organizing, we will certainly do what we can to help them.”
