It could be a long hot summer of strikes.

Union representatives claimed that the strike was being called out of a sense of “responsibility” to their members and that if no agreement over pay and terms of contract is reached with management, then the strike is going to be just the first of many in what promises to be a “long, hot summer”.

Further negotiations were due to take place yesterday between the UGT, CCOO and representatives from the regional hotel federation. However, the meeting didn't go ahead, with the unions instead holding a press conference to explain why they had decided not to attend. “Because we would just be listening to more of the same rhetoric from the management, there was no point in being there,” said Antonio Copete, the General Secretary of UGT's Hostelry and Commerce Federation.

The unions are now demanding that a “status quo” be maintained but one which would provide workers with a “moderate” increase in salary. “In this way, there is plenty of room for agreement,” said Copete.

Gines Diez, Union Action Secretary for the CCOO said at the same press conference: “It the tourist season is lost because of this dispute, it'll have to go. The keys to a solution lie entirely with hotel management.” Copete added that “if they (the managers) want a fight, then they can certainly have one. We've got plenty of industrial action up our sleeves.” He said that the hotel federation's most recent proposal to the unions suggests 10 hour days for six days a week, and no increase in salary. “That's unsustainable,” Copete said. UGT's Union Action Secretary José Garcia said that by the time next year's tourist season comes round, one in four hotel workers with seasonal contracts will be out of a job. “Businesses are increasingly earning more money but they are not using it to create more jobs,” Garcia claimed. “We're not going to give up legal rights which we have spent years negotiating,” said Angeles Sanchez, CCOO Hostelry Secretary.