The prospect of a damaging summer strike by hotel staff in Tenerife and three other Canary Islands has increased further with the flat rejection by unions of a pay offer from employers.
Thousands of workers in hotels, apartments and the wider hospitality sector could walk out in July and August as the ongoing dispute over pay and working conditions appears no nearer a solution.
The Sindicalistas de Base and UGT unions say that a much-publicised offer this week by employers’ associations Ashotel and Aero to raise wages by 13.5% over a 3-year period is a “poisoned dart” and is little different to their earlier proposal of 4.5% for the current year. Workers are demanding an immediate, backdated 6.5% rise this year to offset the increased cost of living in recent years.
Announcing their unanimous rejection of the latest offer, spokespersons Manuel Fitas and José Tomás Ramos said that it masked a range of cuts to other rights such as entitlement to sick leave payments and a departure payment at the end of contracts.
With the start of the busiest period for tourism just around the corner, the standoff between the two sides continues, with the unions adamant that they will not hesitate to make good their promises to repeat their industrial action of last Easter and stage strikes every Friday during July and August in all hotels in Tenerife, La Gomera, La Palma and El Hierro.
However, in what has been interpreted as a possible olive branch, the unions have agreed to hold further talks early next week and have acknowledged that a one-size-fits-all approach may not be compulsory. Factors such as the percentage of staff costs within the overall revenue of a hotel could be considered, in recognition of the fact that the wage bill could be a much bigger burden for a hotel not situated in a prime location than for a seafront one.
The prospect of a crippling strike with protests outside hotels in resorts has already been echoed in the international media, with some in the UK headlining the «summer chaos» in store for British holidaymakers.
