Man hurt in picket line brawl

By Athena Karsera

A PICKET was slightly injured yesterday while trying to stop colleagues not on strike from entering a Larnaca hotel. Unions also met yesterday to discuss extending strike action throughout the hotel industry.

The unnamed striker suffered minor leg injuries when a taxi driver carrying hotel workers insisted on passing, despite being blocked by picketers. The man was hurt in the resulting brawl.

The Peo union’s hotel representative, Andreas Trahanas, said the pickets had strengthened their measures “and have not allowed any strike-breakers to go in”.

He said that on the tenth day of the strike, delivery men were also not allowed entry to the Golden Bay and Lordos Beach hotels.

Unions were meeting last night to discuss whether workers at other hotels should join the strike action.

Yiannakis Phillipou of Peo said he was disappointed that the Cyprus Tourism Businesses Association (Stek) and Hoteliers’ Association (Pasyxe) had sided with the owner of the two hotels, Lordos Holdings.

“It bothers us because they are two organisations with whom we discuss problems in the industry,” Phillipou told CyBC radio. He said they had been expecting the two associations’ support.

Picketers outside the two hotels are protesting against the dismissal of 73 of their colleagues after sections of both hotels were turned over to private contractors.

The director of Lordos Holdings, Constantinos Lordos, has said that he will return to the negotiation table only when picketers stop blocking the hotel entrances for at least 48 hours.

The company says the dismissals were necessary to combat millions of pounds in losses at the two hotels.

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.