Nicosia hotels to stage sympathy strikes

NICOSIA hotels will stage a two-hour sympathy strikes tomorrow after Labour Ministry talks failed to reach a compromise in the Lordos hotel dispute yesterday.

Pickets at the Golden Bay and Lordos Beach hotels in Larnaca have been striking for over a month demanding the reinstatement of 73 colleagues laid off when sections of the two hotels were turned over to outside contractors.

After meeting yesterday with the unions and management, Labour Minister Andreas Moushiouttas said no progress had been made.

“This meeting does not mean that the problem has been solved. There are many difficult aspects to the problem, but attempts to solve it will continue,” the minister said.

For his part, Constantinos Lordos, the president of Lordos Holdings, which owns the hotels, said: “There will be a problem for as long as the unions want to decide and the company pays.”

Sek and Peo unions were more optimistic.

Sek’s secretary-general, Michalakis Ioannou, said “the fact that we will be meeting again is positive. Our position remains the same as it was at the start, but this does not mean we are not willing to have dialogue and to find a compromise.”

The new Secretary general of Peo, Pampis Kiritsis, added: “I think it is obvious that we have not made progress on the basic problem, but we have to continue trying.”

Lordos argues the dismissals were necessary in order to overturn chronic losses at the hotels and has said they are non-negotiable.

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