This year we published A paradox in COVID-19 pandemic recovery: Increased precarity of women hotel workers in British Columbia. Join us for a panel discussion featuring the report’s authors and hotel industry workers. We will discuss the report’s findings, the active organizing happening today to address workers’ challenges and the policy solutions put forward to advance these efforts.

WHEN: Wednesday, April 10th. Reception at 4:30pm (refreshments provided) 
Panel starts at 5pm.

WHERE: Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at
580 W Hastings (room 320) | Zoom webinar

FORMAT: online and in-person, please let us know how you’ll be attending:

Alice Mũrage (panelist)is a researcher with the Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society (PIPPS) based at Simon Fraser University’s Faculty of Health Sciences.

Michelle Travis (panelist) is the research director of UNITE HERE Local 40, a union representing workers throughout BC, most of whom work in the accommodation and food services sector.

Véronique Sioufi (facilitator) is CCPA-BC’s Researcher for Racial & Socio-economic Equity.

Dr. Julia Smith (host) leads PIPPS’ Health and Social Inequities Theme, which aims to identify health and social inequities associated with infectious disease events and assist in identifying promising policy approaches to prevent or reduce risk of social and economic inequities in future pandemics.

Hotel workers from UNITE HERE Local 40 will be part of the panel.

ABOUT THE REPORT

The CCPA–BC office, in collaboration with SFU Faculty of Health Sciences researchers and UNITE HERE local 40, published A paradox in COVID-19 pandemic recovery: Increased precarity of women hotel workers in British Columbia. The report documents the experiences of women hotel workers—a group of women who have been deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic but rarely represented in media, research or policy debates. Their lived experiences illustrate how pandemic responses initiated changes in the hotel sector that interacted with pre-existing inequities, challenging labour conditions and a devaluing of care work.

Authors: Alice Mũrage, Stefanie Machado, Alexandra Selinger, Michelle Travis and Julia Smith

[Download the report here]