New deadlock in hotel dispute

By Athena Karsera

AN UNOFFICIAL deadlock was declared yesterday in hotel workers’ negotiations with hoteliers’ association Stek.

Unions had reached a similar impasse last week with the other hoteliers’ association, Pasyxe, and a strike at Pasyxe represented hotels is set to begin on Sunday.

One of the unions representing hotel workers, Peo, announced its disappointment at Stek’s decision not to go ahead with an Administrative Council meeting on the issue, which had been programmed for yesterday.

Spokesman Yiannakis Phillipou said: “We are upset about this cancellation because, until now, we have had serious talks and had reached an unofficial agreement.”

But he added that the decision to declare a deadlock had been prompted by the end of the tourist season and the resulting weakening of the union’s bargaining position.

According to Phillipou, Labour Minister Andreas Moushiouttas will be officially notified of the deadlock on Monday, provided there is no change in Stek’s position until then.

But Stek director general Phidias Karris told the Cyprus Mail that the Administrative Council meeting had been cancelled because the hotel association’s convention did not allow a meeting to be held “at such short notice”; besides, he added, many Administrative Council members would have been unable to attend the meeting because of previous commitments, and therefore no valid majority could have been attained.

Karris stressed that he did not see the cancellation of the meeting as a valid reason for a deadlock in talks to be declared, adding that rumours of disagreement within the association over the issue were completely unfounded.

Meanwhile, the parallel dispute with Pasyxe hotels is one step ahead, with Peo and Sek unions promising strike action from Sunday.

Sek yesterday announced that the action would leave affected hotels with just a skeleton maintenance staff and telephone operator. Sek’s general secretary for the hotel sector, Nicos Epistathiou, told the Cyprus Mail that all serving staff, including waiters and chamber-maids, would be on strike.

Hotel workers and hoteliers’ associations have been holding lengthy negotiations over workers’ demand for alterations to their collective agreements. Demands include higher salaries, an extension of maternity leave from 12 to 16 weeks and a larger amount to be paid to medical funds.

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.