Shangri-La ends row with most of ousted workers

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)