Strike at Spence Maldivian resort

RAVI LADDUWAHETTY

Meedhupparu Hotel in the Maldives, managed by diversified blue chip Aitken Spence, is facing a strike with General Manager Mohamed Mahdy threatening the hotel closure.

"Over 100 staffers at the Meedhupparu Hotel stopped work demanding implementation of labour rights of a recent Maldivian Employment Act. Protests lasted for well over a month," sources told Daily News Business yesterday.

According to these sources, Meedhupparu General Manager Mohamed Mahdy, has announced that the resort would dismiss all employees refusing to return to work because they had not given hotel management officials warnings prior to the strike.

"Up until now they have not given us any written requests or demands.

"To hold a strike there are certain conditions, but they just didn't come to work "We will terminate 100 people if we have to even if we have to close down the resort," he added.

However, Ibrahim Rasheed, an employee at the resort, has said hotel management were given plenty of notice about the strike.

"We have spoken to the management about this for the past five months. We have told them that we will strike if we don't get our demands," he said.

"We have been meeting with them for three nights now. This evening we met with them and they noted down our demands and said they would give us an answer by tomorrow morning," he added.