Workers strike forces Shangri-La to move guests

JAKARTA (JP): The management of the five-star Shangri-La Hotel had to evacuate their room guests to another hotel and temporarily close most of its facilities, including its bar and restaurants, following an all out strike by its workers on Friday.

The strike by some 500 staff, mostly on-duty workers like those from the Food & Beverage and Room Service units, started at midday over a prolonged dispute concerning several matters, particularly their service charges, pension fund, and the suspension of the hotel workers' union.

"We plan to stay and sleep in the hotel's lobby until our demands are met by the management," the union chairman Halilintar Nurdin told The Jakarta Post.

Head of the hotel's public relations department Romy Herlambang said: "If both sides fail to settle the problems, we'll cancel our New Year's Eve party."

She added that the hotel had also started turning away potential guests.

According to Romy, the strike had forced the hotel to ask all of its guests to move to the Mandarin Hotel near the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle.

"We have had to move them since we could not serve them in accordance with the Shangri-La's standards," she said.

"As of now, there are 20 guests who are still here," she added, but refused to disclose the precise number of evacuated guests.

Mandarin hotel on-duty manager Geoffrey said that the Shangri- La had asked for 40 rooms for its guests due to the strike.

"But there have only been 10 rooms occupied by the Shangri-La guests so far. Probably, the remaining guests have picked other hotels to stay in," Geoffrey told the Post at 9:40 p.m.

The 32-story Shangri-La on Jl. Karet Pasar Baru Timur has 668 rooms and suites.

Halilintar said his union had 900 members out of the hotel's total workforce of some 1,150.

During the first day of the strike on Friday, the Korean Embassy held a New Year fiesta in the hotel's ballroom. The evening party went smoothly.

"They were served by staff from the administration section, such as from the human resources department (HRD) and the sales and accounting department," said one of the HRD staff, Nina, who acted as a waitress for the evening.

According to Halilintar and his fellow workers, they have at least 12 demands that they want the hotel management to agree to.

They include a pension fund, which has yet to be provided, that service charges be distributed equally, 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.

Halilintar has been suspended since Friday based on a letter signed by the hotel HRD manager, Novianita. Two days earlier, Novianita in a notice posted up in various parts of the hotel ordered the workers to take down all of the posters they had erected, or they would be sanctioned.

When asked for a further explanation, Romy said "No comment".

"There has been a dialog between our management and the workers, but no decision has been made," she added.

But "this strike is really disrupting business in our hotel," she said.

It would appear that Friday's strike is the first one in the capital which has led a hotel's management to evacuate its room guests. (dja/bsr)