Shangri-La ends row with most of ousted workers

JAKARTA (JP): The Shangri-La hotel has settled a dispute with most of the 601 workers it fired in December for staging a strike which management considered illegal, the hotel's lawyers and representatives of the former workers announced on Monday.

Halilintar Nurdin, the former chairman of the Shangri-La's Mandiri Workers Union, who led the strike, said he and 524 other former workers had signed an agreement accepting a management offer of severance pay commensurate with their respective lengths of service in the hotel.

At a joint news conference with the hotel's lawyers, Halilintar said that in his case he would receive severance pay amounting to three months of his last salary, and was waiving any further claims against the Shangri-La in the agreement he signed on Friday.

Maqdir Ismail of the Maqdir & Mulyadi law firm which represented the hotel, said negotiations were still taking place with the other 94 workers who had yet to accept the offer.

The December strike, mostly by food and beverage workers who were demanding better working conditions, shut the five-star hotel down for nearly three months.

The lawyers said the hotel suffered Rp 80 billion ($7.2 million) in losses because of the closure.

Management subsequently fired all its employees, and then recruited some of them back in addition to hiring new workers. The hotel reopened on March 17.

Halilintar and his colleagues had been demanding far higher compensation and reemployment, and even picketed the hotel on the day of its reopening in March.

Halilintar said that he regretted the industrial action, which caused losses not only to the hotel but also the striking workers.

Claiming that he and his colleagues had been exploited by a foreign party, he failed to spell out the real motive for provoking the workers to go on strike.

But he singled out the Canada-based International Union of Food Workers, which he said donated US$10,000 between March and April as an expression of solidarity with his union.

Some of this money was given to the workers to help them survive during the strike and some was used to finance demonstrations against the hotel, he said.

Halilintar stressed that the decision to settle was made of their own will, free from any pressure.

Shangri-La management hailed the decision by the former workers to settle the dispute.

"It's a little overdue, but we appreciate this, now that we both realize that this was caused by an act of provocation and not by a dispute between workers and management," Maqdir said.

Halilintar also called on management to rehire the workers who had settled because they were having difficulties in securing jobs in other hotels and restaurants as they had gained a "reputation" following their participation in the industrial action at the Shangri-La.

Maqdir said management had already rehired 18 of the former workers but it would be difficult to hire more because the hotel had hired enough employees already, and the possibility of resentment from existing workers. (06)