Agreement on trying to save jobs in the hotel sector.

Agreement on trying to save jobs in the hotel sector. | Efe

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterMadrid20/04/2020 08:04
TW
0

An historic agreement has been reached between hotel business associations and the main unions in the hotel sector, CCOO and UGT, to jointly press the Spanish government for concrete measures to protect jobs and the hotel industry. The chief signatory on behalf of hoteliers is the Cehat national confederation, of which the Majorca Hoteliers Federation and the Association of Hotel Chains in the Balearics are associates.

Both unions and employers appreciate that once the state of alarm is lifted, restrictions on travel are going to persist. This will make hotel activity one of the last to recover. For this reason, the agreement is seeking various labour-related measures, e.g. an extension of ERTEs to six months, business exemptions from social security contributions, and specific unemployment protection.

References have been made to employees with 'fijo discontinuo' contracts with sufficient benefits that could be consumed during the legal period of unemployment and to employees under ERTE who are entitled to summer bonus payments under collective bargaining agreements.

The employers are undertaking to call back fijo discontinuo employees on the scheduled dates and include them in the relevant ERTE along with the rest of the workforce. Furthermore, they will not resort to temporary or fixed-term contracts until the entire workforce affected by force majeure ERTE is once more working.

The government is being requested to apply a twelve-month grace period to capital repayments on financial operations so that hotel companies only pay interest.

The agreement also establishes that hotel companies will deploy all preventive means to guarantee the health and safety of employees and guests, eliminating any risk of contagion in accommodation, providing personal protection equipment to staff and observing any containment measures - regional or national - that are maintained once activity is able to resume.