Calamijas training hotel staff announce strike

CALAMIJAS hotel workers have announced a strike for October 23-24 to try and defend their jobs.

The 25 workers at the hotel, the only part of the CIOMijas leisure industry training centre still functioning, will be demanding that the Junta de Andalucia regional government suspends a recently announced redundancy plan for the hotel. Instead, the hotel staff are asking for the hotel and training centre to be taken over by the Andalucian Employment Service (SAE).

Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) trade union representatives Gonzalo Fuentes, Lola Villalba and Jose Antonio Plaza announced the strike at a press conference on Tuesday (October 13) and blamed the situation workers are facing on bad management on the part of the Junta.

CCOO will be asking during negotiations due to start this Friday (October 16) that the hotel, which has trained more than 3,000 students since it opened in 2005, most of whom have since found work in the hotel sector, becomes part of SAE training facilities.

“Bad management on the part of the Junta and the outstanding debt with GDT, the company that owns the hotel, has led to a redundancy plan which will seriously affect training and employment,” Villalba declared.

On Tuesday evening the Junta replied in a statement that the permanent workers are employed by the hotel and therefore not its responsibility.

Once the training centre becomes part of the SAE, the authorities have said, the workers will become dependent on this organism.