Worker strike closes Shangri-La hotel

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)