Image Credit: hyatt.com
The employees of the now-closed, Hyatt Regency Mumbai hotel have gone to the industrial court against their employers. It may be recalled that the Hyatt Regency had on Monday announced a temporary closure of operations as they didn’t have enough funds to pay the salaries of their staff.
Late on Monday, the unhappy employees of the renowned 5-star hotel went to the industrial court located in Bandra(East). The court heard the employees case and decided to give Hyatt Regency and its parent company Asian Hotels(West) Limited time till June 28 to respond to the petition.
The employees of the hotel are members of the Bhartiya Kamgar Sena, a workers’ union linked to Maharashtra’s ruling party Shivsena.
According to the employees, they are working at half the salary since the pandemic hit in 2020 and have not even received their salaries for the past two months. They are deeply unhappy with the hotel’s decision to shut its operations. “Even during the pandemic, we risked our lives and worked for them and this is how they are repaying us,” one of the employees complained.
Bhartiya Kamgar Sena’s Secretary, Manoj Dhumal, revealed that the union has approached the industrial court as well as the labour commissioner to solve the matter.
Earlier on Monday, the General Manager of the hotel, Hardip Marwah had released a statement saying, “This is to inform all the on-roll staff of the hotel that no funds are forthcoming from Asian Hotels (West) Ltd, the owner of Hyatt Regency Mumbai, to enable payment of salaries or to aid the operations of the hotel.”
Later it was also revealed that the hotel had defaulted on term loans from Yes Bank a week before its closure.