The disgruntled staff of the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra have agreed to resume work following promises by the management of the hotel to resolve all their issues beginning with salary arrears.
This was an outcome of a meeting between executives of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), members of the local union of the hotel and a representative from the management board of the hotel.
Earlier today [Monday], staff of the Beach Hotel numbering about 100 held a protest over unfavourable working conditions and outstanding salary arrears from 2019.
The Principal Industrial Relations Officer for the Industrial Workers Union (ICU), Odelia Sowu, in efforts to come them down, assured them that discussions were underway to address all their concerns.
“We’ve started a very long haul in the area of our negotiations for the June salary and we appreciate the fact that today being the 27th of July we have not yet received our June salary. We want to acknowledge the fact that as employees, we are also having some challenges. You have families back at home that you need to care for and without salaries, it’s becoming a challenge so, in view of this, we have taken a second look at the overall negotiation process. The good news is that approval has been given for the payment of 50%. What is outstanding now is the July salary so we’ll also open up discussions on it,” she explained.
But addressing the staff after the meeting, Deputy General Secretary in charge of Operations at the ICU, Morgan Ayawine, announced that payment of all arrears will begin soon.
“By the tenets of our own agreement, you people are supposed to take your salaries by the 22nd of the month. June passed without any July. Here we are in July. So there is that kind of violations of the rules of the game. Management has violated the collective agreement that they appended their signature to. So June and July salaries will be paid at the rate of 50%. This should be paid not later than Friday. We currently have a backlog on backpays. So we are saying that all outstanding backpays should and must be paid immediately after the retirement of June and July salaries,” he declared.