The month-long ordeal that began on 8 January when the staff of the five-star Crowne Plaza hotel showed up for work only to be given new job descriptions such as construction workers, carpenters, electricians and security guards has drawn to a conclusion after successful negotiations between the General Workers’ Union and the site’s new owners, Imperial Point Co. Ltd.
Employees speaking to The Malta Independent yesterday commented they were satisfied with the conclusion of the negotiations, but that they would have obviously wanted more from their settlement.
The golden handshake, they said, was “better than nothing and certainly better than the conditions we have been working under”. As part of the agreement brokered, the employees will be staying on at the site until next week.
GWU hospitality and food section secretary Josef Bugeja confirmed the deal and that the union is satisfied with the outcome.
About a dozen of the 100-odd former hotel staff had sustained injuries while carrying out heavy manual labour without training, experience, supervision or even proper safety equipment.
The Occupation Health and Safety Authority in fact last week halted works on site and commenced court proceedings against Imperial Point Co. Ltd.
The employees, many of whom are qualified, highly experienced veterans of the tourism industry, had been assured that the site’s new owners would be retaining them in their previous capacities once it was handed over by the government.
Yet with the hotel being revamped into a large residential complex and a small, three-star hotel, a reinstitution of all the employees to their previous posts was dubious to say the least.
And while the employees had agreed to do “light restoration” work, they had been given details such as dangerous demolition and construction work. One particularly gruelling and dangerous job detail involved the demolition of four storeys of ceilings in order to make way for a new staircase and lift shaft.
Employees who had served individually in capacities such as restaurant managers, head chefs, duty managers, stewards and supervisors, head waiters and sous chefs, now had been turned to gruelling manual labour. Other workers, meanwhile, had been exported to work at other construction sites being developed by the company.
Owned by the government up until December, the Crowne Plaza had been leased to and run by Air Malta through its subsidiary Tigne development Company Ltd. The site is currently on promise of sale to Imperial Point Co. Ltd, headed by George Muscat, on condition that the workers would be retained.