Employers agree to open contract negotiations in the face of a strike threat during Holy Week

They agree to study labor improvements demanded by CCOO, which maintains the strike notice while seeking provincial agreements before March 28

EFE

March 24 2025 (18:37 WET)
Tourists in hotels in Lanzarote. Photo: José Luis Carrasco.
Tourists in hotels in Lanzarote. Photo: José Luis Carrasco.

The hotel and tourism employers of the Canary Islands agree to open negotiations on the current provincial agreements to study the "renewal of the sector" proposed by CCOO, which maintains its strike notice for Holy Week, and also offer "counterparts" to the unions.

This agreement culminated the meeting that the General Directorate of Labor convened this Monday with the strike committee and the employers of the sector in Las Palmas (FEHT), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Ashotel and Aero), Lanzarote (Asolan) and Fuerteventura (Asofuer).

At its conclusion, the managing director of Ashotel, Juan Pablo González, informed journalists that the parties have been urged to meet shortly "in provincial format", meetings in which CCOO, the majority union in the sector in Las Palmas and secondary in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, must formally specify the reasons for the strike notice it maintains for Holy Thursday and Good Friday.

"Our intention is always to negotiate and reach agreements, but a strike is not a solution for any of the parties, so we want to sit down and talk, we have time, there is a game until the days before the call and the will will be to see if the proposals that are made to overcome this conflict are reasonable for both parties," he said.

The representative of Ashotel, who recalled that in the province of Tenerife the majority union is Sindicalistas de Base, admitted that in this negotiation, aimed at updating the current provincial agreements before they expire, "the company must make an effort to reach some kind of agreement".

Regarding the specific issues to be renegotiated, González alluded to an acceptance of the initial diagnosis made by CCOO, although he stressed that other issues refer to problems that go beyond the scope of the employers when negotiating, such as mobility problems or the lack of housing.

"The employers must make some kind of intervention, but it is not in our hands to solve these problems that go beyond the scope of collective bargaining," said the manager of Ashotel.

Regarding the salary increase pursued by the unions in the sector, which they have quantified in a range of between "7% overall" and up to 10% above the 2.5% established in the Las Palmas agreement, Ashotel considered this Monday that the request to increase salaries "may be logical", while advancing that the business side will also request issues from the unions at the appropriate procedural moment.

Asked about the elimination of split shifts or the need to provide cleaning ladies with labor improvements such as the adjustable beds with which those in the Balearic Islands work by law, issues claimed by the strike committee, the manager of Ashotel stressed that "it is not yet in the hands of employers to make the laws" and stressed that "many times the focus is on launching things, but not on measuring the effectiveness" they produce.

The agreement of the province of Tenerife expires in July 2026, but if both parties are interested in opening a negotiation to reach some kind of agreement, the employers will not say no, but it has to be of interest to both parties, he warned.

In addition to celebrating that their strike notice has led the employers to open a dialogue that this union claims to have been requesting for a year and a half, CCOO insisted at this Monday's meeting on the need to negotiate a regional agreement, a proposal that has not been accepted.

The general secretary of the Federation of Services of CCOO, Borja Suárez, has reported that this organization will negotiate provincially "the renewal of the sector" and the improvements needed by workers who have lost purchasing power, who cannot reconcile their work and family life and who suffer a precarious situation.

To this end, it will sit at the collective bargaining tables with the rest of the union organizations represented in them in order to achieve improvements in the field of occupational risk prevention or in work shifts, in addition to a salary increase of up to 10%.

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