Orphanides: our staff don't want to join a union

CHRISTOS Orphanides, owner of Orphanides Supermarkets, yesterday denied allegations that his company forbade its employees from joining trade unions.

“The truth is that out of 800 company employees there are just three people who expressed a desire to have a union represent them.

“We have even invited the Labour Ministry to conduct a survey of their own if they want further proof.”

Orphanides also expressed his anger at the behaviour of the unions towards his employees.

“We are in the twenty-first century and entering Europe and yet our unions are behaving as they did 50 years go. They’re visiting my employees’ homes and disturbing them. Even when the employees ask the unions to stop they don’t — it’s been going on for three months now.

“Our employees are not stupid, they would join a union if their interests weren’t represented by us. But the benefits our company offers them mean they don’t want to join,” Orphanides said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.