After the recent developments because of the Coronavirus epidemic, the Hotel Workers Unions took a series of initiatives for the protection of Hotel-Tourism-Catering Workers.

Among these initiatives, they met with the Ministry of Tourism and filed the following Resolution and demands for immediate measures of protection of workers’ Health and Safety, as well as their work right and job positions

The class oriented worker’s unions of Greece in Hotel-Tourism, members of PAME, accessing the current situation forming inside the country due to the spread of the new coronavirus we demand the immediate intervention of the government in order to take substantial measures for the safety of the workers and to stop every attempt for antiworkers’measures against the workers in the sector of Hotels-Tourism and Catering.

Up until today there are hundreds of complaints for the tactics of the employers who have already started firing hotel workers or forcing them in taking leave days without pay or cutting from their annual vacation days. There are also many cases of seasonal workers who have already been informed that they won’t be rehired in the tourist season.

In the meanwhile the government is prepared to financially support the big hotel and restaurant owners in order to “shield” their investments and protect their profits from the epidemic’s consequences. On the contrary there is no real support for the public healthcare system that is enormously understaffed and lacks proper infrastructures and necessary materials. This policythat commercializes the healthcare system has transformed health in an expensive merchandise.

We are aware that the substantial protection of health and the support of the workers are incompatible with the big monopoly’s interests and that is why the workers will bear the epidemic’s consequences. Media, hotel owners and the government report a big blow on tourism, with cancellations etc, as prefaces expecting us workers to pay for yet another crisis, as we know and have confronted in the past.

 WE DEMAND

• 
  No worker to be fired no matter the working relation in effect and the nature of the business
• No unpaid leave. The leaves should be additional to the regular paid leave.
• No change in the contracts from full time to part time or rotation
• No workers in a fixed-term contract should lose their jobs. Equal rights for all.
• Take all the necessary precautionary health and safety measures for work places with the responsibility of the employer and fill all vacancies for doctors and security technicians. Immediate informing of the staff
• Additional staffing in the departments of cleanliness and maintenance so all spaces are sufficiently disinfected and safe to use.
• Immediate recruitment of regular staff in all public health centers, hospitals and laboratories.
• All primary care units should operate 24/7 for the decongestion of hospitals. Ensure that all health care units have supplies of medicines and sanitary materials.
• Guarantee by law additional paid and secured leaves:

–To all sick workers in order to recover

–To all workers that have to abstain from their work, as an emergency precautionary measure to stop coronavirus’ spread

–To all workers that have to take care a sick child or and elderly family member.

–To all workers that have to take care of their children at home because of the preventive closure of all school units and nurseries