VANCOUVER -- Vancouver Coun. Jean Swanson is joining an ongoing hunger strike by hotel workers fighting to return to their jobs.

Unionized members of Unite Here say 50,000 hotel workers have been unemployed by the COVID-19 crisis and they want the legal right to return to their jobs as the industry recovers.

Hotel workers are staging a hunger strike on the steps of the B.C. legislature to press their demands and Swanson will fast today at the Vancouver office of NDP MLA Chandra Spencer-Herbert.

Other workers are planning a car caravan in Victoria near the steps of the legislature to support the hunger strikers -- with the caravan set to begin at 5 p.m. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 12, 2020.