Amendments to the Employment Act will be presented to the next session of parliament, Minister of Human Resources, Youth and Sports Hassan Latheef has said.
In an interview with Voice of Maldives on the occasion of May Day, the minister said the amendments have now been sent to the president’s office and were part of the process of ratifying conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
The minister said a draft legislation on introducing trade unions and collective bargaining has also been completed.
The Tourism Employees Association of Maldives (TEAM) will hold a May Day rally in Male’ today.
Shangri-La Villingili Resort and Spa has invited striking staff to return to work, after 157 staff stopped working in protest over the dismissal of four villa hosts.
The villa hosts were dismissed after security and a duty manager discovered they had locked themselves in a guest villa with a PlayStation during a lunch break.
Senior management from the hotel chain flew into the Maldives earlier this week to resolve the situation, just as the Ministry of Human Resources and the Tourism Employees Association of the Maldives (TEAM) became involved.
A statement from the resort today said while management “acknowledges and accepts employees’ rights under Maldivian
Law, because of the serious nature of employee behaviour, 14 staff members will no longer be employed by the property.”
“The management will fill the resulting vacancies with Maldivians,” it added.
Other employees “are invited to return to work”, the resort’s statement said, adding that “initial claims that 65 employees were dismissed are untrue.”
“The resolution reflects the desire to move forward in a fair and reasonable manner considering the needs of the local community and all employees. The resort is operating as normal and no guests have been affected,” Shangri-La said.
Minivan News contacted one of the striking employees camped on Feydhoo, who said the protesters would stick to their original demands, which include a written statement from the resort reinstating the dismissed employees.
“Most of the strikers have been given first and last warnings, which means next thing they do wrong they will be dismissed,” he claimed.
The resort’s general manager went to Feydhoo yesterday and called the 14 dismissed strikers one by one to an area secured by riot police, the striker claimed, to inform them of their dismissal.
Vice President of TEAM Mauroof Zakir said those dismissed included the four villa hosts “and 10 staff who management suspects have been leading the strike.”
He noted that the protesting staff had taken a vote yesterday over whether to continue to with the strike “and the majority decided to continue.”
More than 80 staff are continuing to strike, he said, adding that the resort was continuing to operate normally “because the majority of staff are expatriate.”
The strike began on 14 April when four villa hosts were dismissed by the resort for locking themselves in an empty guest room to play PlayStation.
Sixty-one other staff members signed a petition to reinstate the four dismissed staff, but instead, they were all escorted by police to Feydhoo in Seenu Atoll and dismissed from their jobs.
Since the strike began, they have been joined by another 110 other staff members as well as members of TEAM. Over 157 people are now protesting at Feydhoo, hoping the management of Shangri-La will reconsider their decision and reinstate the 65 staff.
But Vice President of TEAM Mauroof Zakir doesn’t think it will be over soon, saying “it might last for another week.”
“Management doesn’t want to change their decision,” he said, noting that the strike is still going strong and is “well organised.”
Zakir said the PlayStation was originally brought at a guest’s request, but the guest said something was wrong with the console. He said the four staff went into an empty guest room—noting all the rooms around it were empty “so there would be no disturbances”—and were checking the console.
“They acknowledged they started to play a football game for about 5 or 10 minutes,” Zakir said, but claimed the resort’s management did not deal with the situation “as they should have.”
“After 45 minutes, they had made their decision [to dismiss the villa hosts],” Zakir said.
He said a number of staff then went to the Human Resources department to demand resort management reinstate the four staff members, but management refused.
“We are still trying to negotiate with management,” Zakir said, “but they don’t want to negotiate with our demands.”
He said management then decided to fire everyone who had taken part in petitioning for the reinstatement of the four staff members, and called police to have all 65 staff escorted to nearby Feydhoo.
Shangri-La Villingili Resort
Zakir said the 65 dismissals were unlawful as staff were given no warning and no termination letter. He added that since the incident took place, they have been receiving informal messages from resort management that all staff who joined the protest will be fired, too.
“[Management] is still trying to protect their decision,” Zakir said, “they wanted to investigate the case but they don’t want to discuss it [with us].”
Zakir said the resort management was scheduled to have another meeting tomorrow and they were bringing in people from the company’s head office.
He added that the resort needed to not only reinstate all staff but also the trade union.
“Under the Constitution, we have the right to protest and freedom of association,” Zakir said.
He said because the Maldives is a member of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), they had the right to form unions, and he said he hoped the ILO “might step in” and help resolve the situation.
“They won’t give up and neither will we,” Zakir stated.
Shangri-La’s Director for Communication Leslie Garcia said the resort is “running smoothly and operating as normal,” and added the investigation is currently ongoing.
She said management is “working closely with local government authorities” and was trying to solve the issue, but would not give any comments or details regarding the strike or what measures were being taken to resolve the problem.
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