Workers at three area hotels on strike through sunday

The CCOO Commerce, Hospitality and Tourism syndicate in Malaga began strikes on Thursday at Incosol, Byblos, and Tryp Guadalmar hotels. The strikes continued through Sunday.

The strikes at Incosol and Byblos were called to protest unpaid wages, while the strike at Tryp Guadalmar protests what workers there call the ‘unfair dismissal’ of a colleague.

The management of Incosol has been able to avoid paying wages by invoking a provision in employment regulations that permits ‘temporary relief’ for employers. Workers are calling for an end to that provision, with immediate backpay to all staff.

In addition, workers at Incosol are denouncing what CCOO provincial secretary Lola Villalba calls the ‘repression of trade unions by the hotel establishment’.

‘There are 38 workers from another company not owned by the Hotel Incosol who are supplanting the workers affected by the temporary relief’, Villalba explained.

At Hotel Byblos, employees are striking to demand payment of 10 months of wages. The entire staff of 114 workers has gone unpaid since Byblos entered bankruptcy proceedings.

Villalba points out that the situation is much the same at the five other Costa del Sol luxury hotels now in bankruptcy – hotel Guadalpin Banús, Marbella Guadalpin, Incosol, Torrequebrada, and Los Monteros.

‘At Hotel Byblos the administration has been left to die, along with the company and all the workers’, Villalba said. ‘No action has been taken to improve the situation of this landmark hotel’.

The CCOO called the strike at Tryp Guadalmar to demand the reinstatement of a worker whose dismissal the Supreme Court has ruled illegal, the union said.

The employee was fired, according to the CCOO, for requesting a permanent, fixed contract – a status that management has granted to more than 15 workers in the past. 

John Grimmett

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