Queen’s Park should reform Ontario’s labour laws to make it easier for workers to unionize, say area hotel workers who have been disciplined, suspended and even fired for trying to form a union.

Unions give workers more job security and could help reverse the tide of low-wage, part-time and contract work sweeping Greater Toronto, they argue.

And yet, only about one in four Ontario workers is part of a union, down from about 32 per cent in 1995.

“Hotel work has a potential to be a good job where you can build a life, a family and a home. But right now it isn’t,” said Rekha Sharma, 27, a server in the main dining room of the Novotel Mississauga. Her part-time hours were chopped to nothing for 10 months in 2009 after she spoke at a rally in support of forming a union at the hotel.

“I would like a full-time job with benefits. I want to be able to go to the dentist, to fill a prescription,” said Sharma, who had to quit university and now juggles two part-time jobs to support herself and her disabled mother.

Sharma is among about a dozen hotel workers from Novotel properties in Mississauga, North York and Ottawa who have lost their jobs, been disciplined or had working hours cut since 2008 when they began organizing to form a union with UNITE HERE, Local 75.

The union filed charges of unfair labour practices against all three hotels with the Ontario Labour Relations Board in 2009.

The union, several workers and the Ontario Federation of Labour are taking their plea to Queen’s Park on Tuesday.

To balance the playing field between employers and workers, they want the province to require notices be posted in all workplaces to educate workers about their labour rights, including the right to form a union.

They want immediate reinstatement of workers who are fired or suspended during a union drive to ease the “chilling” effect on other workers. They are also seeking “card-based certification” so there is no need to hold a vote and give the company time to intimidate workers when 55 per cent of workers have signed union cards expressing their desire to join a union.

One of the union’s key charges against Novotel is that the company interfered with workers’ right to form a union by intimidating union supporters in advance of union votes. In two of the hotels, votes came up short even though a strong majority of workers had signed union cards. A majority of workers at the North York Novotel has signed union cards, but the union has not yet held a vote.

The company denies any wrong-doing. “We support our team members and respect their right to make their own free choices regarding labour union representation in the workplace,” said Eric Buitenhuis, vice president of operations, Novotel Canada in a statement.

Ontario Federation of Labour President Sid Ryan said the Novotel workers’ experience shows why changes are needed.

“The working poor who are working in precarious jobs as cleaners and in the hotel industry are being taken advantage of in many instances,” he said. “There is a desperate need to reform the Labour Relations Act and bring back some balance.”

Former Ottawa Novotel housekeeping worker Esperance Umwizaninde, a refugee from Rwanda whose 13-year-old son has leukemia, says she was told she wouldn’t be given time to take her son to medical appointments if she joined a union.

The union alleges the intimidation continued until she was eventually fired in October last year.

“It’s been very difficult,” says the 44-year-old single mother of five whose son and 16-year-old daughter are still at home.

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Immigrants and women make up a large proportion of hotel workers and many don’t know their rights, said David Sanders, organizing director for UNITE HERE.

“There is an easy solution to the rise in working poor,” he said. “If we made it easier for people to organize, people could fix their situations themselves. That is what this is all about.”