Hotel strikers block road

PROTESTORS closed the Larnaca to Dhekelia road at several intervals yesterday in support of striking workers at two Larnaca hotels.

According to Oroklini police, some 250 rain-soaked pickets blocked the road for 45 minutes starting at 11.30am; they later blocked the road at regular intervals until late into the afternoon.

Police diverted traffic onto service roads.

Lordos Holdings, which owns the hotels involved in the dispute, said yesterday strikers had caused £1,200 worth of damage to their property during yesterday’s protest, damaging fencing around both the Lordos Beach and the Golden Bay hotels and smashing a window at the Golden Bay.

The action came as Peo hotels boss Yiannakis Phillipou said there had been no new developments in strike negotiations, despite Labour Ministry efforts at mediation.

Speaking to the assembled strikers and their sympathisers from all over Cyprus, Phillipou criticised tactics employed by the Ministers of Labour and Tourism, and the stance taken by the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Employers and Industrialists Association and the Hoteliers’ Association, which have all condemned the strike. He also criticised travel agents for continuing to send tourists to the two hotels.

Sek’s hotel representative Nicos Epistethiou told the demonstrators that the employers had “gone back on what they said. Is at a dead-end.”

He said the unions were ready for dialogue, “because no problem can be solved without dialogue.” But he rejected arbitration, saying “a problem can’t be solved with arbitration without dialogue.”

The strikes yesterday went into their 68th day calling for the reinstatement of 73 staff sacked when sections of the Golden Bay and Lordos Beach hotels were tuned over to outside contractors.

Lordos Holdings insists it will not discuss the redundancies.

The unions have refused a Labour Ministry proposal for binding arbitration to end the increasingly bitter dispute.

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