Paphos hotel workers call off CoLA strike, reach deal with employers (Updated)

By Nikolaos Prakas and Elias Hazou

Some 200 workers at three Paphos hotels called off a strike on Thursday evening, hours after their walkout, following a deal with employers over the payment of cost of living allowance (CoLA).

The employees had called an impromptu strike in the morning, demanding that the managers pay them CoLA and honour a collective agreement.

Workers were seen standing outside the hotel holding placards that read ‘Hands off CoLA’ and ‘CoLA for all’.

Under the deal hammered out on the same day, the company managing the three hotels committed in writing to paying CoLA along with the April salaries, plus a 1.5 per cent statutory pay rise.

Nikos Savvides, a trade unionist with the PEO syndicate, expressed satisfaction with the development, but said five more hotels were holding out on CoLA.

“A number of hoteliers in Paphos who since January should have been paying CoLA and pay rises provided by the collective agreement, and who had refused to do so, are slowly being forced to pay what they owe following pressure as well as impromptu work stoppages by exasperated staff.”

Savvides called on the few holdouts to fall in line and “to think it over maturely, because if they don’t [pay what they owe] the workers will react dynamically.”

On Friday meanwhile, the labour ministry will mediate a meeting between unions and with another hotel-owning company, for the same issue.

For his part, Koullis Ignatiou of the SEK trade union said talks would continue with the hotels holding out on CoLA.

To date, he noted, about 90 per cent of hotels have paid the allowance as they ought to.

Earlier, trade unionists had accused hoteliers of refusing to enter talks and of “threatening and blackmailing” employees.