Worker strike closes Shangri-La hotel

JAKARTA (JP): Hundreds of workers of the five-star Shangri-La Hotel continued their strike for the second day on Saturday, forcing the management to temporarily close their business activities and evacuate all room guests.

The situation has also led the hotel to cancel all its year- end celebrations for Idul Fitri, Christmas, New Year's Eve and the New Year.

A wedding and wedding anniversary slated to be held at the hotel on Saturday evening had to be moved to other hotels.

The hosts of these parties said they only knew about the problem at the hotel at the last minute when they were informed of the strike by the workers they had hired for the decorations.

By Saturday evening, the striking workers closed the hotel's entrance gates and placed wooden planks across their latches. The gates were covered with posters and banners expressing their dissatisfaction with the management.

The hotel's top management and the representatives of its worker's union, in a meeting until late Saturday evening, failed to reach an agreement.

According to the union chairman, Halilintar Nurdin, the management has decided to reject all the workers' demands, which include a pension fund; that service charges be distributed equally and not based on seniority and job level; a THR (Idul Fitri/Christmas allowance) worth four times their monthly salary; and the lifting of Halilintar's suspension.

Unfortunately, the hotel's top management could not be reached for comment.

Head of the hotel's public relation department, Rommy Herlambang, said the dispute was being handled by her boss.

"I cannot give you any further information as the general manager had taken over the handling of this matter. There has been no agreement between the workers and the management," Rommy told The Jakarta Post.

Halilintar, who met with the management in the afternoon, revealed that his employers even asked him to sign an agreement letter for his resignation.

"We had no deal at all with the management because they only wanted to discuss this matter after I have resigned," Halilintar told the Post separately.

On the first day of the strike on Friday, some 20 room guests were still at the hotel, while others were moved to other hotels.

On Saturday, all of the 668 rooms and 40 suites were empty. The lobby was still crowded with the workers, who had stayed there since Friday. They were seen sleeping, playing cards, and praying.

This is the first such experience faced by the 32-story hotel, located on Jl. Karet Pasar Baru Timur since its grand opening seven years ago.

The Shangri-La Jakarta is one the 37 deluxe hotels and resorts in Asia's key cities run under the management of Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, which was founded in 1971 in Singapore.

In Indonesia, the hotel chain has another hotel in the East Java capital of Surabaya.

According to Halilintar, the workers are worried that they might be forcefully removed from the hotel's lobby by police under the request of the hotel management.

We will stay here until the management holds a discussion with us again, but ... we are worried," he said, adding that the meeting was also attended by a senior Jakarta Police officer from the intelligence department.

Meanwhile, the hosts of the wedding and wedding anniversary were very upset with the cancellation of their parties and the hotel management's lack of responsibility.

It remained unclear whether the two families would sue the hotel for their failure in informing them of the problem earlier.

"The hotel management did not inform us about this until a decorator for our party told us that the hotel workers were on strike," Jehosua, the host of the wedding anniversary, told the Post.

He added that the management later offered to move the event to Grand Melia Hotel in Kuningan, South Jakarta, on Shangri-La's account, which the family rejected.

"I had invited 1,000 guests for the 50th anniversary of my parents' wedding tonight and I have made the down payment," Jehosua remarked.

The family of the wedding party finally accepted the hotel's offer and hastily placed notices at every entrance of Shangri-La, notifying that the ceremony had been moved to Grand Melia Hotel.

"We could not do anything at this moment but to accept their offer to move," one of the family members said. (dja)