By Anthony O. Miller
EIGHT Sri Lankan men, who claim Royale Bakeries of Nicosia owes them £134, 000 in overtime pay, yesterday became the first foreign workers ever to picket for workplace justice outside the Ministry of Labour, according to their union and their lawyer.
Lenia Pantelidou, Deok trade union labour organiser, and Yiannakis Erotocritou, the men’s lawyer, said they wanted Labour Minister Andreas Moushiouttas to keep his pledge to press Royale Bakeries’ owner, Symeon Symionides, to pay the pickets their due.
“We came to work in Royale Bakeries in 1995. We were working like buffaloes, ” Rangith Geeganage, 43, spokesman for the eight pickets, told the Cyprus Mail.
“They worked 12 hours a day” for up to four years, confirmed Pantelidou. “They have a contract for eight hours a day. They were paid for eight hours, but they worked 12. They are (collectively) owed £134,000 pounds,” over £13, 500 each.
Symionides also refused the men any holidays in 1996 and 1997, and never paid their 13th-month pay, Geeganage said. When they complained, he said, Symionides put them off with promises to consider their requests. They say he never kept them.
After taxes, social insurance and lodging costs, the men netted £300 per month out of £375 gross pay for a 72-hour week. Fed up, Geeganage said, they went to Erotocritou last November.
Asked why it took three years to see a lawyer, Geeganage said they were afraid: “Nobody explained to us (our rights). Nobody ever opened that door. We were blocked. We found out from the union” in December 1998, he said.
Erotocritou and Deok helped the men file a complaint with the Labour Department of the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance. “But for a long time there was no result,” he said.
Faced with a picket line and news coverage, Symionides yesterday offered four of the eight men £3,000 each, including air fares, Pantelidou said. But he refused the other four men anything, she said, adding: “He said he would think about it.”
The men said Symionides did something similar last year: He split off two of their co-workers from their complaint by offering the pair £2,000 and their air fare home. The pair accepted it.
Fearing another attempt to divide and conquer, Geeganage said the men “didn’t take it. We are not going to take the money.” They each want £4,000, plus air fare home, so they took to the picket line at the Labour Ministry.
Symionides dismissed the eight men’s claims as false: “We don’t owe them any money,” he said, adding that, if anything, the eight owed him money for days they did not show up but were paid.
Asked why he paid their two co-workers £2,000 plus air fare, if the pair were technically owed nothing, he replied: “To show my good will.”
Pantelidou rejected Symionides contention, alleging that other Sri Lankans had also been exploited by him and sent back.
“Mr Symionides is very well known with the trade unions, because with the Cypriots (who work for him), it’s the same problem,” Pantelidou said. “He’s a very powerful businessman, so he does what he likes,” she added.
By refusing to meet all the men’s terms, “Symionides tries to win time,” until their visas expire in July. They can then be deported without him paying anything, Pantelidou said.
Despite not having settled with the eight, “Symionides went to the Labour Ministry and asked for other foreigners, because he needs foreigners to work in his bakery,” Pantelidou said.
“As Deok, we put a veto on his request to the Ministry of Labour,” she said. “We said we do not accept his request to hire other foreigners, because if he replaces the eight with other foreigners, the same thing will begin again. We have a veto.”
Labour Department mediator Andreas Moleskis confirmed: “We can black-list the employer, withdrawing all (Royal Bakeries’) permits for foreign workers… immediately.”
“This will be the first time foreigners picket outside the Ministry of Labour to show they need our solidarity,” Deok’s Pantelidou said. “They ask equal treatment with all other workers” in Cyprus.
“As Deok, we spoke to Moushiouttas about this case, personally,” Pantelidou said, “and he said: ‘Oh, but this is unbelievable! We can’t do things like this.’ We gave him the name, the telephone of the Royale Bakeries. He said: ‘OK, I will handle this.’ But he did nothing,” she added.
“If the Ministry of Labour presses Symionides,” the case can be settled before the men’s visas expire in July, Pantelidou said.
“We can stop this by asking the Minister of Labour to give special attention to these people,” Erotocritou said. “What I want the Labour Ministry to do is to examine their case and to speed up things. It’s about time to speed up things.”
