By Athena Karsera
STRIKERS yesterday threatened to go public with the names of strike- breaking colleagues still working at two Larnaca hotels.
The warning came on day 11 of the strike, as pickets stood out in the rain outside the Golden Bay and Lordos Beach Hotels.
They are demanding the reinstatement of 73 of their colleagues, dismissed as part of cost-cutting measures. Their jobs will now be farmed out to outside contractors.
The strikers also decided yesterday to expand their blockade of the hotel entrances to bar fuel trucks from passing through.
Pickets have already tried to stop strike-breakers and delivery men from entering the two hotels for several days.
It was also announced yesterday that workers’ unions Sek, Peo and Deok would be meeting on Friday to discuss further action.
Sek’s Nicos Epistathiou yesterday told CyBC radio that the unions were ready to negotiate and that the Labour and Commerce Ministries had a duty to intervene.
On Friday, Constantinos Lordos, the Director of Lordos Holdings, which owns both hotels, cancelled negotiations with the strikers, saying he would talk again only once they stopped blocking the entrances for at least 24 hours.
Throughout the strike, management has insisted that its decision to turn over sectors to private contractors was necessary to combat chronic losses.
Unions insist that the strike will stop only once the dismissals are overturned.
Meanwhile, workers at Nicosia’s Philoxenia Hotel, of which the government is the main shareholder, yesterday morning demonstrated outside the Commerce Ministry.
Striking for two hours from 7.30 am, the workers were demanding an official decision on the beleaguered hotel’s future.
Ten minutes before the end of the action a telegram was sent to Sek and Peo inviting them to meet with Labour Minister Andreas Moushiouttas at 8.30 this morning.
The unions accepted Moushiouttas’ invitation.
The loss-making hotel needs some £2 million worth of refurbishing, which its board is unable to finance.
The board wants the hotel to be closed down, especially since the government has been barred by the House of Representatives from selling any shares in the limited company it created to oversee the running of the Philoxenia.
