Fired hotel workers vow to fight on

JAKARTA (JP): Some 82 people who were fired by the Shangri-La Hotel in December for launching a strike that shut down the five- star establishment, vowed on Wednesday to continue their fight for their old jobs.

Their pledge comes after hundreds of their fellow strikers, including their leader, accepted their fate and accepted the severance pay offered by the hotel.

Valentino Wagiyo, the new leader of the workers, said they were consulting with lawyers to explore the possibility of suing the hotel in their campaign to be rehired under better contracts.

Halilintar Nurdin, who had led the striking workers until last month, announced on Monday that he and 528 other workers had decided to settle with the hotel, accepting management's severance pay offer and dropping any further claims against the Shangri-La.

Halilintar also accused the International Union of Food (IUF) Workers of instigating the workers to continue their fight against the hotel.

The strike, mostly by workers from the food and beverage department, forced the hotel to close down for nearly three months. It reopened in March, without the 601 workers who took part in the strike.

The Ministry of Manpower ruled in favor of Shangri-La in April, saying that its decision to dismiss the workers was valid but that it was required to pay them severance pay in accordance with regulations.

Valentino said management had refused a number of requests to meet with his organization, now renamed the Shangri-La Labor Union, to negotiate.

The union also denied Halilintar's claim that the Sydney-based IUF (not Canadian-based as reported earlier) was behind the industrial action.

"Halilintar does not represent all of the members of the union, and his statement was misleading," said Oddie Hudiyanto a member of the union.

The IUF in a statement received here said it was very much part of the struggle by the locked-out workers grouped in the now defunct Shangri-La Mandiri Union Workers (SPMS), stressing that it could not stand idle while members of its affiliates were "starved into submission".

"Any support the IUF renders for the SPMS, either financial or otherwise, is an expression of solidarity by one section of the organization to another.

"It is mischievous and misleading to suggest that the IUF has no right to assist or no responsibility to the SPMS, whose members and families are in need of food," it said in a statement distributed by Valentino. (06)