The Algarve’s Hospitality and Industry Workers union has issued a formal strike notice for Friday involving staff at all the region's hotels that are owned by JJW Hotels & Resorts.
Workers are demanding wage increases, the replacement of overtime, the payment of language allowance where appropriate, 25 days holiday a year and a 35-hour working week.
The workers are to gather on Friday morning at the Dona Filipa Hotel in Vale do Lobo to express to management that they are not at all happy and to demand a response to their problems.
For ten years, workers at the Dona Filipa Hotel & San Lorenzo Golf Resort, the Formosa Park Hotel Apartamentos, the Pinheiros Altos Golf Spa & Hotels and the Penina Hotel & Golf Resort claim not to have received their full pay.
But this is as much a political strike as a ‘workers vs management’ action as the union sent out a notice to the press today which stated that "In recent years, due to the right-wing policies of successive governments and the retrograde action and exploitative management, workers have seen their working and living conditions severely decline."
Workers of this multinational group operating in the tourism sector "are tired of seeing their lives and those of their families going backwards and can not accept working more and receiving less and less."
The quarrel needs to be split into those financial measure brought about by the coalition government’s austerity policies which hit all low-paid workers; and any management actions at JJW Hotels that is discriminatory, unfair, tardy or illegal.
The newly appointed Socialist government has upped the minimum wage and put in place other measure to ease the financial burdens of Porugal's low paid.
Workers can not blame management for government policy but if the JJW management also has been depressing wages, not paying for hours worked or not keeping its part of employment contracts, then a strike may be the jolt needed.
The international hotels group is owned by billionaire Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber (pictured below). Forbes has him down for around seven billion USD and he owns a raft of assets in the Algarve as well as luxury and budget hotels in Europe and Egypt.
Comments
But a 35 hour work week for hotel employees? Sorry, that just doesn't fly.