Sacked Vilamoura hotel workers were distributing subversive leaflets

Paul Rees 03 January 2017

crownePlazaVilamoura The Communist party has taken up the case of the three sacked workers from Vilamoura’s Crowne Plaza hotel and has demanded a statement of how much public money the hotel’s owner recently has received from the public purse.

The three workers, who also are union members and activists, were sacked after management spotted them taking part in a demonstration that took place near the hotel on March 24, 2016 and handing out leafelts which were deemed to be subversive.

The Hotel Industry's trade union has lodged a complaint that the hotel’s management "decided to fire union leaders, delegates and activists for having participated, with other workers, in a union action that took place next to the hotel."

The Communist parliamentary group now wants to know what public support Marope Algarve, the owner of the Hotel Crowne Plaza Vilamoura, has been receiving.

According to the Communists, the company that owns the hotel "has benefited from public support, including tax benefits, granted by the Portuguese State under investment programmes."

Paulo Sá, the Algarve Communist party MP, has asked the Ministry of Economy for "a complete list of public support amounts, including tax benefits, granted to Marope Algarve - Hotéis de Portuga SA, since January 2010, and a copy of the investment contracts and their annexes, including the concession contracts for tax benefits, entered into by the Portuguese State with Hotéis de Portugal SA."

For the Communists, "it is intolerable that the administration of the Hotel Crowne Plaza Vilamoura dismissed workers for exercising a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, the right of freedom of association."

At the strike in question, the now sacked trade unionists distributed "a communiqué denouncing the deterioration of wages and working conditions, the thousands of euros owed to workers for unpaid overtime and increased employer repression."

This infuriated management, which sacked them.