SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 5 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Ashotel presented a proposal today, Friday, that was previously communicated to unions to double the salary increase outlined in the current agreement for 2024 and 2025. This would result in an increase from 4.5% to 9% in both years (a rise of 4.5% in 2024 and 4.5% in 2025).
The proposal was unveiled during a press conference at the Ashotel headquarters. The event was attended by Ashotel’s president, Jorge Marichal, alongside the two vice presidents, Victoria López and Myriam Ortega, as well as the manager, Juan Pablo González.
For several months, the hotel employers’ negotiation committee has been engaging in meetings with union representatives, particularly from UGT and CCOO, who filed a lawsuit over the ‘ad personam’ bonus. The employers’ association stated that this bonus concept was accepted back in 1995 when seniority was eliminated from the Workers’ Statute and replaced with this personal supplement for each employee.
The Ashotel Board of Directors, after holding an extraordinary meeting yesterday, decided to reveal this proposal for a salary increment and hopes that the union will find it satisfactory.
This wage hike will amount to around 100 million Euros over the next two years in the payrolls of the 31,850 employees in accommodation establishments in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, according to data from the first quarter of 2024 issued by the Canary Islands Institute of Statistics for employed personnel in the accommodation sector.
“We are not turning a blind eye to the situation on the 20th of April, which is why we are presenting this proposal today. This complements other ongoing initiatives. It would be unjust to blame a sector that is not responsible for the social unrest in the Canary Islands,” said Marichal, emphasizing that attention should be directed towards the consequences of the increase in the Islands’ population, which has grown from 1.6 to 2.2 million residents so far this century.
“The surge in population has not been coupled with necessary infrastructure such as education, healthcare, transport networks, and housing,” he pointed out. “Tourism seems to unfairly bear the brunt of society’s dissatisfaction, even though it is not the problem but rather the solution,” Marichal added.
The Ashotel president, highlighting that this proposal aligns with the hotel industry’s focus on social sustainability, noted that people “are part of the equation and will be the top priority in the short and medium term,” following earlier stages where economic and environmental sustainability were prioritised by companies.
“Let’s put our doubts about the model aside. While it requires improvement, I have confidence in it, and so far, no one has been able to articulate what the model should be to drive the economies of the Islands,” Marichal stated.
The employers’ association’s president called on the unions to retract the lawsuit filed “on an issue settled 15 years ago.” “The proposal is on the table; we trust that they will demonstrate the same loyalty we’ve shown in pursuing a shared objective: social and labour peace that has always prevailed in our sector,” he remarked.
INITIATIVES FOR SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT
A few months ago, Ashotel expressed support for some of the concerns raised during the 20th of April, such as the challenges faced by workers in accessing housing or the daily transport issues on the main roads of the most populous islands, like Tenerife. Ashotel clarifies that these are not sector-specific responsibilities. Nonetheless, to contribute towards finding solutions, the employers’ association has proposed measures to partially address these challenges.
Regarding housing, the hotel industry proposed building affordable houses for rent to employees last April after highlighting the acute housing crisis in Tenerife to Fecam in November. Additionally, to tackle mobility issues, a pilot project was introduced in May, following months of analysis, offering on-demand bus services to transport hotel staff to their workplaces.
AN ACTIVE AGREEMENT
In September 2022, Ashotel, the Association of Restaurants and Leisure Companies (AERO), and Sindicalistas de Base (SB) signed the existing collective agreement for the hospitality sector in the province (covering accommodation and food services) for the four-year period 2022-2026, incorporating a total salary increase of 10.25%.
The agreement was endorsed by the employers’ association and SB. Despite the majority support from SB with 10 members out of the 15 in the negotiation group, UGT and CCOO did not join the agreement to offer stronger backing to the sector. The current agreement entailed annual increases over the four-year span 2022-2026: 3%, 2.75%, 2.5%, and 2%. The negotiating panel was established in early June 2022, comprising the standard composition of 15 members from the employers’ association (11 from Ashotel and 4 from AERO) and 15 from the unions (10 SB representatives, 3 from CCOO, and 2 from UGT).
